Persuasive letter to the editor

Letter to the Editor

Does Teen Texting Foretell Traffic Tribulations?

New Haven Register

Sargent Drive

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am a college student from Orange, Connecticut and I have a deep concern for the street safety of high school students from Amity Regional High School, and for the people who live and drive in and around the community of Orange. My concern is based on the students' use of cell phones while driving -- that is, the texting activities that students are involved with as they leave the school, as they get into their cars, and as they drive away.

It's dangerous enough to be talking on the phone while driving, but at least while talking the driver can see the road and can respond when the brakes are needed. But texting requires the driver to look down at the phone, or to at least take one's eyes off the road for a brief moment, plenty enough time to plow into a 1st grader crossing the street lugging a heavy backpack.

Is any one besides me paying attention to this problem? Are teachers and administrators at Amity aware that while their students are leaving their last class, heading to their lockers to gather their belongings, they are already checking text messages and are engaged in sending texts -- presumably to friends, family, and others? This is before they leave the school grounds.

I have waited inside and outside of Amity at different times to pick up my neighbor's daughter, and this has provided me with the opportunity to witness the texting activities of teenagers at the high school. I'm not saying texting is an evil activity, but clearly young people in high school -- a great majority of them -- are not looking up at the sky when they walk down the steps at the main doors and head to the parking lot.

Their eyes are directed in a downward glance because they are glued to their cell phones, their thumbs are working the keys, punching in those words they will send to some person in the distance that they are communicating with. The weather can be frightfully threatening (heavy rain clouds, snow flurries, or tornado warnings) or perfectly lovely, but many students leaving the high school are totally oblivious to any surroundings -- including people -- because their text messaging compulsion is in play

All -- or at least most -- adults are aware that the law in Connecticut prohibits texting while driving. The Connecticut Office of Highway Safety prohibits any driver from texting while driving, but that doesn't stop high school students in my neighborhood from texting while driving.

According to the Pew Research Center, about 75% of young people 12 to 17 years of age have cell phones -- that is up from 45% just eight years ago in 2004. The Pew research shows that 88% of teen cell phone owners text daily on their phones. In 2006 some 51% of teens were texting daily, now it is closer to 90% - and the frequency of their texting is alarming, whether they are driving or not.

Clearly there is an addiction problem here in Orange, Connecticut, and one can safely assume the same problem is persistent in Orange, California, and Orange, Florida. Pew Research reports that one in three teens sends more than 100 text messages -- a day! That's more than 3,000 a month! Girls are more text-friendly than boys, as the average texting girl sends and receives an estimated 80 text messages a day (compared with boys who send and receive 30 texts daily), according to Pew Research.

Technology Addiction specialist Dr. Hilarie Cash in Seattle explains that the "instant gratification of getting a text back floods the brain's pleasure center with the mood enhancing chemical dopamine," which leads to addiction. Some students interviewed by Dr. Cash report "withdrawal-like symptoms" if their phone's battery dies or they do not get text back quickly from someone they care about.

Doctor Michael Seyffert treats teens for sleeping disorders, and he reports that one out of five teens "have their sleep interrupted by texting" -- either they dream they are getting a text, or someone actually texts them in the middle of the night. Dr. Seyffert (of Seattle) explains, "Neuro-imaging studies have shown that those kids who are texting have that area of their brain light up the same as an addict using heroin."

We can safely assume from the empirical literature that many teens and college students as well are addicted to the texting technologies. There is little argument about that. And the practical truth about texting while driving (according to research by Nationwide Insurance) is that any brief distraction from handling an automobile diverts a driver's reaction time the same as if the driver had a blood alcohol level of .08 (the legal limit in many states).