WMN Exclusive: College Students Text Often & During All Sorts of Activities

FoamPartysmall2.jpgWireless and Mobile News recently polled undergraduate
college students at the Claremont Colleges in Southern California and found
that texting is a crucial form of communication for college-aged
students.

College students at the Claremont Colleges use texting more than phone calling and respond quickly to texts.  Texting is used for all kinds of communication, including intimate encounters.  Texting is also performed during many activities, such as driving, bicycling, during class, while exercising, in the shower, and during sex.

The 143 respondents were between 18-23
years old.  99.3% of Claremont College students surveyed owned a cell phone with
texting capabilities.  Claremont College students sent and received an average
of 26.6 texts a day, or 800 texts a month.  15% of respondents sent and received
over 50 texts per day.

This fell in sharp contrast with the number of phone calls
students made and received each day.  On average, Claremont College students only
reported making and receiving 3.8 phone calls per day.  28% of students reported
making one or zero phone calls per day.  These results indicate that
Claremont College students are essentially not using their cell phone for phone
calls.  However, this could be because the Claremont Colleges are largely
residential, and students live in dorms that are walking distance from each other.

Students responded quickly after receiving a text as well. 
On average, students noticed they had received a text message only 6.37 minutes
after it was sent.  However, 45% of students said that, on average, they noticed they
received a text message within two minutes after it was received on their phone.

Texting While Driving, Bicycling, Showering & Foaming

Claremont College students also proved willing to respond to
text messages in a wide range of situations, even when responding posed an
obvious danger.

70.6% of Claremont College students reported having sent a
text message while driving.  These results were significantly higher than
results from the teens in a Pew Report called Teens and Mobile Phones, which found that only 34% of texting
teens ages 16-17 had texted while driving.  Claremont College students
also reported much higher texting use while driving as compared to adults on a
Pew Report called Adults and Cell Phone Distractions,
where 47% of texting adults reported as having sent or read a text message
while driving.

24.5% of the Claremont College student respondents also said
they had texted while riding a bicycle.

In addition, 55.9% of Wireless and Mobile News poll respondents
admitted to texting while they were working out at the gym.  38.5% said they had
sent a text message while doing a cardiovascular activity, like running or
jogging.

Even though many professors ask students to turn off
their cell phones before class, Claremont College students still proved to be connected to their cell phones while in class.  86% of students reported
having texted during a college class.  However, only 20.3% of respondents had ever
been caught by a professor sending a text message, and only 7% had used their
mobile phone to cheat on a test.

For a small percentage, texting has made breaking up with a
significant other a lot less personal.  5.6% of respondents had broken up with a
girlfriend or boyfriend over text, while 6.3% had been broken up with over
text.

In some cases, texting can get very sexual.  17.5% of
respondents admitted to sending a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude photo
of themselves over texts.  This was significantly higher than The Pew Report,
where only 4% of teens said they had sent a sexually suggestive nude or nearly
nude image of themselves to someone via text message.

A full 50.3% of Wireless and Mobile News poll respondents had
also utlized texting for a "booty call."  11.9% of respondents had even picked
up their phone to text while engaged in sexual activities.

When asked to describe the strangest place where they had
texted, the majority of students, 26%, who chose to answer the question said
they had texted while in the bathroom.  Six students also admitted to texting
while taking a shower.  

TextingUseChart.JPG

Other students have gone to great extremes to send a text
message, while risking water damage to their mobile phones.  One student admitted
to texting while at an annual Claremont College "Foam Party," an event where students dance in a courtyard filled with soap foam while more foam is dispensed from a soap machine from a second-story balcony.  The student said the
phone was in a plastic bag, and the student sent the text while in the middle of
the water at the party.

Students also reported other unusual places where they had
sent texts.  Two students even admitted to "texting" while at a funeral.  Click on the chart to see full results.

Despite the apparent inclination for Claremont College students to text, even when it might be
dangerous or inappropriate, respondents still seemed to
recognize that texting can prevent them from concentrating or performing
activities to their fullest ability.

According to one student, "I have texted before as I was
practicing a hip hop routine, as in texting as I was actually dancing the dance
full out--or I guess not as full out since I was texting."

How the Claremont Colleges Compare to Other Studies

An April 2010 Pew Report on Teens and Mobile Phones
found
that cell phone use has become the major form of communication between
teenagers.  75% of ages 12-17 now own cell phones.  According to the
report,
50% of teens send 50 or more texts a day, which is equivalent to 1,500
texts a
month.  A third of teens send more than 100 texts a day, or more than
3,000
texts a month.  Teens typically make or receive only 5 calls a day.

A January 2010 report by Nielsen
found similarly staggering results.  According to the report, American
teenagers send or receive 3,146 messages a month, which "translates into more
than 10 messages every hour of the month that they are not sleeping or in
school."

Teens in The Pew Report and the Nielsen study sent
significantly more texts per day than the somewhat older college students in the Wireless and Mobile News' poll.

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Jamie Golderg is a senior at Pomona College.  She texts 30 times a day and helps edit the Student Life via texting on busy days.  She is also the administrator of the Wireless and Mobile News on Facebook.  You are welcome to join the texting discussion on Facebook.

Foam Party Photo & Text Use Chart by Jamie Goldberg

1 thought on “WMN Exclusive: College Students Text Often & During All Sorts of Activities”

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