A recent study showed that the average teenager sends 80 text messages a day. I personally send on average over 300-500 a day.

I love the fact that I can talk to my friends at anytime about random things. It’s so much easier to talk than actually calling my friends, because I can multi-task while texting and we can talk about random, funny things.

Like most teenagers, though, I deal with the negative consequences as well.

Performance in school and quality of schoolwork slips, and teenagers who have an obsession with texting often get far behind in their work. Some deal with lack of sleep, because they are often up late texting friends or waking up in the middle of the night to check their phones. For some teenagers, text messaging friends causes anxieties, and they are often afraid of getting into a fight through text messaging, where sarcasm and tone are not easily picked up.

Often, text messaging can contribute to shyness, as texting can be impersonal. If a teenager spends too much time text messaging friends, they forget how to have face-to-face conversations.

The bottom line is, texting has both good and bad aspects as anything, and teenagers should be careful to make sure that their texting isn’t overtaking more important things in their life.