GCSE English Exam to include questions on text messaging

There have been as many articles on the benefits of text messging to the English language as studies condemning it's negative impact on students' writing skills, but this is the first time a major English litterature exam, the GCSE English, will actually include text messaging questions, The Telegraph reports.

In the new exam, being introduced by the Assessment Qualifications Alliance (AQA), students will get 10 per cent of their overall mark for the section on text message linguistics.

As part of their answer they will be required to include examples of common text shortcuts.

The subject of text messaging will be taught from next September as part of the Studying Spoken Language module intended to make GCSEs harder.

Not all faculty members agree, to some it's the ultimate "dumbing down". Read full article.

Sending SMS instead of a Xmas Card

Half of people will be sending a text message instead of a Christmas card this year, according to a survey conducted by rightmobilephone.co.uk, reports The Telegraph.

A survey 1,014 people found that 58 per cent of people claimed they would now send a simple text message instead of popping a card in the post.

Senior Citizen Sexting on the Rise

The American Association of Retired People (AARP) Web site recently posted a story that details the growing popularity of raunchy text exchanges among senior citizens.

More and more of the 50+ set, both single and married, are using text messaging to spice up their sex lives.

[via Switched]

NIH grants Use Cell Phones to Collect Real-Time Data on Substance Use

R. Lorraine Collins, PhD, a health behavior researcher at the University at Buffalo is currently using a cell-phone-based interactive voice response technology, or IVR, in a new three-year, $1.39 million study funded this September by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, to investigate whether physical activity can help decrease marijuana use by young adults.

"This is an interesting and useful way to collect data," said Collins. "It eliminates the problems associated with study participants having to recall their behavior, and cell phones are ubiquitous with young people, who are our main targets in these studies. We capture their data right away. It's all computerized and stored immediately."

News Release via boingboing

Young Users Update Social Media After Sex

A new study conducted by retrevo has found that 36 percent of people under 35 admit to checking Facebook, texting, or Tweeting right after sex. [via The Huffington Post]

Guys are twice as likely as women to use social media after sex and iPhone users are three times more likely to check Twitter or Facebook than Blackberry users.

Text messages may help smokers quit

Smokers who are trying to kick the habit may be able to turn to their cell phones to avoid temptation, a study published Tuesday suggests, reports Reuters.

In a review of four clinical trials, researchers found that smoking-cessation programs that included text-messaged advice doubled the chances that smokers would be able to kick the habit for up to a year.

The programs, conducted in New Zealand, the UK and Norway, used text messages as a way to give smokers daily advice and encouragement. The programs also offered support when quitters needed it the most; if they found themselves craving nicotine, for example, they could text "crave" to the program and get immediate advice on what to do.

Two of the studies looked at programs that only involved text messages, finding that the service doubled the odds that smokers would quit over six weeks.

RU Kidding - "txtspeak" Has No Impact on Children's Spelling Ability

This will prolly comes as a bit of a shock to UR system, but findings from a group of University of Alberta researchers show that language commonly used in instant messaging has no effect on your child's spelling abilities. If anything, says study author Connie Varnhagen, using language variations commonly used in instant messaging and texting is actually a good sign.

[via Cellular News]

Related: - Texting can b gd 4 ur kids

Tech addiction 'harms learning'

Technology addiction among young people is having a disruptive effect on their learning, researchers have warned. The BBC reports.

The study - Techno Addicts: Young Person Addiction to Technology - was carried out by researchers at Cranfield School of Management, Northampton Business School and academic consultancy AJM Associates.

They used a written questionnaire to examine the nature and the volume of mobile phone calls and text messaging as well as computer use including e-mail, instant messaging and accessing social networking sites.

Read full BBC article.

The full report, Techno Addicts: Young Person Addiction to Technology is published by Cambridge-based Sigel Press as an electronic whitepaper download and is available at www.sigelpress.com.

Study: Teenagers Lose Sleep over Texting

Yet another study, this time from Belgium, claims that text messages on mobile phones are making an impact on the quality of sleep for almost 50% of the 16 year old people. [via NewsReviews.org]

The Leuven study on media and adolescent health was conducted in Flanders in which about 2500 children studying in 1st and 4th year - aged 13 and 16 years were asked how many times they wake in the night because of incoming SMS messages in their mobile phones.

In the 13 year old children, 13.4% reported that they wake up 1-3 times in a month, 5.8% wake up one in a week, 5.3% wake up many times in a week and 2.2% wake up every night.

In the group of 16 year old children, 20.8% wake up 1-3 times in a month, 10.8% wake up at least one time in a week, 8.9% wake up many times in a week and 2.9% wake up every night.

Previous studies:

-- Sleep Deprived teenagers risk their hearts (USA - 2008)

-- Can't Sleep? Turn Off the Cell Phone! (Canada - 2007)

-- SMS teens losing precious sleep (Australia - 2006)

-- Teens face mobile stress (Sweden - 2006)

-- Students lack sleep (Japanese study - 2005)

-- Americans are sleep deprived (USA - 2005)

-- Mobile phones and video games 'are depriving children of sleep' (Belgian study - 2004)

-- SMS causes poor sleep (Belgian study - 2003)

-- Children text at night instead of sleeping (Australian study - 2003)

More Than Half of All 12-Year-Olds Have Cell Phones

For the first time, more than half of the 12-year-olds in the United States have a cell phone of their very own. Xchangemag reports.

Back in 2004, just 18 percent of the 12-year-olds had their own cell phone, now 51 percent have a cell phone according to new research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, titled: "Teens and Mobile Phones Over the Past Five Years: Pew Internet Looks Back".

By the age of 14, a full 72 percent have a cell phone, and by age 16, the percentage reaches 85 percent -- nearly on par with the all-grown-up population.

Screenagers spend 10 hours a day in front of a screen

A study from npower says Britain's youngsters spend 10 hours a day in front of TVs, computers, phones and videogame consoles. Tech Digest reports.

The survey of 3000 seven to 16 year olds reveals that four in ten kids spend most of their time in their bedroom because all their favourite gadgets are in there. And that the TV, despite facing increasing competition from computers and games consoles, is still the main source of entertainment for this age group racking up an average of 19 hours viewing time per week.

Children spend up to 49 minutes each day texting, 38 minutes surfing the net and one hour playing video games. Says Clare McDougall, education programme director from the energy firm npower: "The summer holidays are traditionally a time when you expect children to be outdoors playing with their friends. But the lure of technology has made it harder to get young people to switch off."

Want to know who your friends are? Ask your cellphone

You might think you are the world authority on your network of friends and acquaintances. But the cellphone in your pocket may be better at tracking your relationships than you are. New Scientist reports.

That's a finding of a five-year-long study by the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and MIT which opens new possibilities for social scientists, epidemiologists and other researchers who want to know how people connect and interact socially.

By looking for simple patterns in the logs of calls and times when phones were close together, the researchers found they could predict who the volunteers would identify as their friends with 95 per cent accuracy.

Read full article.

How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous.

Interesting article on how the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous in Slate.

The science of texting as student awarded PhD in SMS

Dr Caroline Tagg spent three-and-a-half years studying SMS text messaging in order to gain a PhD at Birmingham University. Tech Blorge reports.

The 33-year-old recruited her family and friends, stored all the texts they sent and received, and analyzed their content.

Tagg read 11,000 texts sent by 235 people for a total of 190,000 words. Tagg concluded the average text contains 17.5 words and more importantly that the scaremongering about how texts are harming our language is largely unfounded.

Her 80,000-word thesis on the subject instead concluded that people use playful language in texts, and often mimic real-life conversations with expressive words and phrases.

[via The Telegraph]

Mobile Internet Use Shrinks Digital Divide in the US

A survey, conducted in April by interviewing 2,253 Americans, found that while accessing the Internet via a mobile phone was increasing, the swell was reflected most sharply among African-Americans. Bits Blog reports.

The typical early adopter of a dozen years ago was a white guy in his mid- to late thirties,” said John Horrigan, associate director of the Pew Internet Project and principal author on the report. “Now you see the cutting edge in mobile Internet being populated by younger people of color.”

The report found that nearly half of all African-Americans and English-speaking Hispanics (the study did not include a Spanish-language option) were using mobile phones or other hand-held devices to surf the Web and send e-mail messages. By comparison, just 28 percent of white Americans reported ever going online using a mobile device.

Read full article.

Study: Mobile web a throwback to the '90s

Researchers at Nielsen Norman Group put people to the test to try to look up everything from movie listings to product reviews on their handsets. The conclusion: The mobile web is about as tough to navigate as traditional websites were 15 years ago.USA Today reports.

A study to be released Monday by the researchers — they’re product “usability” experts -- found that the average success rate in completing various tasks on the mobile Internet is just 59%, compared to an average success rate of 80% for websites on a regular PC.

“Observing users suffer during our … sessions reminded us of the very first usability studies we did with traditional websites in 1994," says Nielsen Norman principal Jakob Nielsen, a co-author of the study. "It was that bad.”

Read full article.

Cell phone ringtones can pose major distraction, impair recall

A flurry of recent research has documented that talking on a cell phone poses a dangerous distraction for drivers and others whose attention should be focused elsewhere. Now, a new study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology finds that just the ring of a cell phone may be equally distracting, especially when it comes in a classroom setting or includes a familiar song as a ringtone. News & Information from Washington University reports.

In any setting where people are trying to acquire knowledge and trying to retain that information in some way, a distraction that may just seem like a common annoyance to people may have a really disruptive effect on their later retention of that information," said the study's lead author, Jill Shelton, a postdoctoral psychology fellow in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

... "Many of us consider a cell phone ringing in a public place to be an annoying disruption, but this study confirms that these nuisance noises also have real-life impacts," Shelton said. "These seemingly innocuous events are not only a distraction, but they have a real influence on learning."

Titled "The distracting effects of a ringing cell phone: An investigation of the laboratory and the classroom setting," the study was conducted at Louisiana State University, where Shelton received her doctoral degree. Her co-authors in the LSU psychology department include Emily Elliott, Sharon Eaves and Amanda Exner.

Read full article.

How the mobile phone became an 'instrument for life'

The apparent scourge of the 24/7 lifestyle, the mobile phone, keeps users "perpetually available" but does not make people any more rushed or pressured for time, according to a study of more than 1000 workers. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Indeed, it may even relieve stress, as "dead time" — for example, waiting for the late morning train — can be revived by making a call to mum or scouting a work contact, the research suggests.

An analysis of more than 20,000 calls and texts logged by participants confirms the device originally marketed as a business tool has become an instrument for life.

Read full article.

Study: 'Sexting' about power, not sex

Psychologist Susan Lipkins of Port Washington, N.Y., says people who send sexually explicit electronic messages were more likely to have survey responses suggesting they wanted power and control than those who don't send explicit messages.

Lipkins will present her study Friday at the International Conference on the Use of the Internet in Mental Health at McGill University.

[via Blogs USA Today]

Is texting stunting kids' emotional growth?

MSNBC on children and text messaging. Excerpts:

... There could be a downside to this form of communication. "Texting, to me, could be stunting the growth of kids these days," child and family therapist Donna Wilburn cautions.

Wilburn worries that kids who are too dependent on texting miss out on an important part of social development. "Eighty percent of our communication is based on reading body language and reading visual cues. Texting eliminates eighty percent of what you're getting communication-wise. So it's not a substitute for communication and a lot of teens are using it as a substitute."

US Mobile Internet use doubles year-to-year

Research firm comScore this morning revealed that day-to-day Internet use on cellphones in the US has roughly doubled in the past year.

... Social networking and blogging have emerged as very popular daily uses of the mobile Web and these activities are growing at a torrid pace,” observed Mark Donovan, senior vice president, mobile, comScore.

... In January, 22.3 million people accessed news and information via a downloaded application. Maps are the most popular downloaded application with 8.2 million users, while search was the overwhelmingly favored use for SMS-based news and information access, with 14.1 million users. Overall, 32.4 million people used SMS to access news and information in January.

Young males are the most avid users of mobile news and information, with half of 18 to 34-year-old males engaging in the activity. The mobile Internet is also quite popular among females in the 18 to 24-year-old demographic, with 40 percent accessing it at least once in January.

[via electronica and comScore full press release.]

Texting can b gd 4 ur kids

Concerns have been raised that an explosion in the use of "textisms" like "CUL8R" and "wot u doin 2nite?" could be damaging children's reading and spelling ability. From New Scientist.

To investigate, Beverly Plester and her colleagues at Coventry University in the UK asked 88 children aged 10 to 12 to write text messages describing 10 different scenarios. When they compared the number of textisms used to a separate study of the children's reading ability, they found that those who used more textisms were better readers (British Journal of Developmental Psychology, DOI: 10.1348/026151008X320507).

But do textisms improve literacy, or do better readers use more textisms? The preliminary results of a follow-up study seem to suggest the former, Plester says. She believes that this is because textisms are phonetically based: "Phonological awareness has long been associated with good reading skills." Exposure to the written word in any form is also linked to improved literacy. "These kids are engaging with more written language and they're doing it for fun."

Links to postive studies on the effect of text messaging on student's writing skills:

-- Texts 'do not hinder literacy'

-- Texting teenagers are proving 'more literate than ever before'

-- E-Mail and Texting - Not at all bad

-- Texting 'is no bar to literacy'

-- Teacher finds novel way to use texting

Links to negative studies:

-- Text messages harm written language? (Oh-Hum)

-- Technology marches ahead, grammar gets worse

-- Y TEXTING MAYBE BAD 4 U

-- SMS Resulting in Poor English Grades?

-- SMS and Internet blamed for decline in English Examinations

-- SMS threatens Norwegian language say teachers

-- Teachers hung up on SMS

-- An essay written in text message shorthand

Excessive Text Messaging, a mental illness?

... Although it's too early for conclusive data on the effects of prolific texting -- on attention span, social life, writing ability, family connections -- questions abound, even as many experts point to clear benefits, reports The Washington Post.

Nationally, more than 75 billion text messages are sent a month, and the most avid texters are 13 to 17, say researchers. Teens with cellphones average 2,272 text messages a month, compared with 203 calls, according to the Nielsen Co.

The tap, tap, tap of connectivity can benefit teenagers at a time in life when they cannot always get together in an unscheduled way. Texters are "sharing a sense of co-presence," said Mimi Ito of the University of California at Irvine. "It can be a very socially affirming thing."

Some experts say there are downsides, starting with declines in spelling, word choice and writing complexity. Some suggest too much texting is related to an inability to focus.

The American Journal of Psychiatry published an editorial last year by psychiatrist Jerald J. Block, suggesting that addiction to the Internet and text messaging be included in the diagnostic manual for mental illnesses (compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder).

Picture above: Pam Zingeser relaxes with her daughter Julie, 15, and their dog, Tucker. Julie, who racked up more than 6,000 text messages in one month, sends a quick text. (By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

Indians prefer phone calls to SMS

For people in India, making a call has become the best option to connect, while other countries like to use the SMS to convey their message. 86 percent of Indians had either made or received a call in the past three months but Filipinos have not made or received a single phone call for the same period, instead they prefer the SMS. Silicon India reports.

The basic reason behind the preference of calls to SMS is the cost factor. The average tariff in India for local calls is Re 1, the same as the local SMS rate, while for STD calls, the average tariff is Rs.1.50 and the SMS rate is higher at Rs 2. Thus, SMS tariffs are either higher than voice rates or at best comparable, which makes the latter more lucrative.

"The phone patterns in countries like Thailand and the Philippines are also very different as compared to, say, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh," says Rohan Samarajiva, Chairman and CEO of Lirneasia and a former Srilankan telecom regulator told The Times of India. These findings are the result of a Sri Lankan study titled Teleuse@BOP 08-09 conducted by Asian ICT think-tank Lirneasia, which spanned across Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand. The study surveyed close to 10,000 people from the low-income or Bottom of Pyramid group (earning less than $38 a month). In India, it was around 10 cities which were surveyed.

Children get first mobile phone at average age of eight

Eight is the average age at which children are given their first mobile phone, according to a survey, reports UK's Telegraph.

More than a third of children (35 per cent) own a mobile by the time they are that age, the charity Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg) discovered.

Its survey also found that three-quarters of all children aged seven to 15 owned "at least" one mobile.

The charity's survey highlighted how early children now become financially aware – with peer pressure forcing them to get to grips with money to afford mobile phone ringtones, call costs and computer games.

It found that children as young as seven were offering to do chores in exchange for cash to buy ringtones.

Women More Expressive Than Men When Texting

Researchers at Indiana University studied 1,164 text messages posted on Italy's interactive television music channel Allmusic and found the texts sent from women were more expressive than those of their male counterparts. This came as a surprise, since research shows that, in social situations, men usually talk more and are more expressive in their language while women tend to be more polite and talk less.

[via Switched]

56% would rather hold their cell phone on Valentine's Day

A survey of Canadian cell phone users found 56 percent of them would rather hold their cell phone than a special person on Valentine's Day. Guess who ordered the survey? Virgin Mobile. So much for credibility. But the title was catchy from
UPI.

Last week, Angus Reid Strategies polled 1,000 mobile phone users over the age of 18 across Canada and asked about their attitudes towards the devices and special people in their lives in advance of Feb. 14.

The Virgin Mobile survey found 52 percent saying their phone is with them all day, every day, and if push came to shove, almost 40 percent would rather spend a week without their special partner than be without the phone for a week.

The deepest attachment to phones versus people was found among the 18-34 age bracket, the release said.

Young People Abandon Email in favor or Text Messaging

Studies conducted by The Pew Internet and American Life Project have found that only 65% of teens use social websites nowadays, as opposed to 78% who play online games. AccuraCast reports.

Not too long ago, social networks were the hot favorite among this age group, along with email, which was used by 89% of teennagers at that time.

The latest trend, however, is to use text messaging and instant messaging instead of email, which is now used by only 73% of teenagers.

Significantly, young adults between the ages of 18 and 32 seem to be following the reverse trend, with only 50% of them playing games online while 67% access social networks.

Surprisingly though, it was found that only 10% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 years spend time in virtual worlds, which is almost the same percentage as was found a few years ago, and hardly 2-3% of the older generation do so.

Related:

-- Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead - According to teenagers, e-mail is for business dealings. (2007)

-- E-mail is last millennium, SMS is now. - Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder — a parent, teacher or a boss — or to receive an attached file. (2006)

-- Teens turn away from e-mail - favor MySpace, IM and SMS - Statistics show that, for the first time, teen e-mail use is dropping in the -- apparently in favor of more "instant'' alternatives. (2006)

The decline of e-mail was reported in South Korea as early as 2004:

-- New Forms of Online Communication Spell End of Email Era in Korea - The perception that "email is an old and formal communication means" is rapidly spreading among them. "I use email when I send messages to elders," said a college student by the name of Park. For 22-year-old office worker Kim, "I use email only for receiving cellphone and credit card invoices." (2004)

Text Messaging Still King of Mobile Data Revenues Worldwide

Far from reaching a peak and tailing off, Worldwide Messaging Revenues are set to almost double by 2013 according to a new report from Portio Research focused on mobile messaging that suggests that SMS will continue to be the cash cow of mobile data revenues for some time to come. 160characters reports.

More than fifteen years have passed since the world witnessed its first SMS and in spite of many predictions to the contrary, traffic volumes and revenues continue to confound predictions and are expected to keep growing throughout the global economic downturn.

Indeed the whole mobile messaging industry worth USD 130 billion in 2008 is predicted to be worth USD 224 billion by 2013, 60 percent of non-voice service revenues.

The report, ‘Mobile Messaging Futures 2008 – 2013’ ventures that there is nothing likely to stop continued growth of mobile messaging in the short term, driven by a cocktail of ubiquitous SMS, media rich MMS, enterprise based mobile email and youth conscious mobile IM.

SMS remains ‘King’ because there is no cheap, easy to use alternative that will work with all phones and across all networks, it is loved the world over. Indeed in the US market, where SMS was a comparative slow starter, use per subscriber per month is now almost double the European average. However in China average users send over 100 messages each month whereas the Filipinos continue to be the leading exponents with 755 messages each month. Compared to Asia Pacific’s 40 percent, Latin America and Africa and Middle East contributed a mere 3.9 percent and 4.3 percent respectively to worldwide mobile messaging revenues in 2007.

Text Message May Save Endangered Languages

Can a language stay relevant if it isn't used to send text messages on a cellphone? Language advocates worry that the answer is no, and they are pushing to make more written languages available on cellphones. The WSJ reports.

Texting is the cheapest and most popular mode of cellphone communication in most of the world, and last year text messages topped voice calls even in the U.S.

But companies that develop predictive text say they have created cellphone software for fewer than 80 of the world's 6,912 languages cataloged by SIL International, a Dallas organization that works to preserve languages.

"The idea of having your cultural identity represented in this technology is increasingly important," says Laura Welcher, director of the Rosetta Project of San Francisco's Long Now Foundation. Ms. Welcher, who says linguists fear half the world's languages will disappear in the near future, thinks at least 200 languages have enough speakers to justify development of cellphone text systems. "Technology empowers the poorest people," she adds.

[via Switched]