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Teens Would Rather Text Their Friends Than Talk To Them In Person, Poll Shows (nypost.com) 142

A new poll of 1,141 teenagers shows that teenagers prefer to text their friends than talk in person. The findings come from Common Sense Media's 2018 Social Media, Social Life survey. Fortune reports: Only 15% of teens said Facebook was their main social media site, down from 68% in 2012. Snapchat is now the main site for 41% of teenagers, followed by Instagram at 22%. In addition, this year's survey saw texting (35%) surpass in-person (32%) as teens' favorite way to communicate with friends. In 2012, 49% preferred to communicate in person, versus 33% who preferred texting.

[M]ore teens said that social media had a positive effect on their levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety than those who said it had a negative one, but it seems to have the opposite effect on teens who score low on the authors' social-emotional well-being scale. Of those, 70% said they sometimes feel left out when using social media, 43% feel bad if no one likes or comments on their posts, and 35% said they had been cyberbullied. They were also more likely to say that social media was "extremely" or "every" important, compared to their peers who score high on the scale.

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Teens Would Rather Text Their Friends Than Talk To Them In Person, Poll Shows

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Thanks parents for (lack of) raising such a shitty generation.

    • Re:Thanks parents (Score:5, Insightful)

      by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @03:23AM (#57295506)

      This has nothing to do with parents. It has everything to do with how society evolves.
      Keep your kid away from socializing online and they will become outcasts and misfits. You'd be proud as a parent and your kid would be fucked up.

      Forbidding is easier than mentoring and guiding, of course.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @04:40AM (#57295610)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          On the positive side, this could fix overpopulation within a couple of generations. Having hermits that are too fat too work, shop, have sex, ie. function in general, will eventually eradicate them and possibly their entire family trees. That is, when there's so many of them society can't provide the help they need anymore.
          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward

            So, the average slashdotter. :)

        • So... famine, lack of potable water and crushing poverty in vast regions of the globe fall under rank #3 and below?

          On topic: I don't say I like where Social media is going, but it's a wave you can't stop, however you can ride it, together with your kids, minimizing its ill effects.

          • by ranton ( 36917 )

            This and obesity are the two most serious problems facing our citizenry, in my opinion.

            So... famine, lack of potable water and crushing poverty in vast regions of the globe fall under rank #3 and below?

            My guess is that jpaine619 lives in the US, so "problems facing our citenzry" likely means "problems facing US citizens." I agree that lack of potable water and crushing poverty are not the most serious problems within the US. Not because other problems are of greater magnitude to those harmed by them, but because their are relatively few people who have those problems in the US.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          Studies have shown that smart phones and social media are addictive. The instant gratification of both boosts dopamine levels.. Pretty soon you get used to those elevated dopamine levels.. That's addiction.

          This and obesity are the two most serious problems facing our citizenry, in my opinion.

          Says the self-satisfied person posting this on social media. Yes, you. Upping your character count does not increase your level of virtue.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

              Has nothing to do with virtue. And, I'm not a kid. And, I posted from a computer. I didn't do it from a smart phone I'm glued to all day.

              No, you're an adult. Posting from your computer every day, usually multiple times per day. Insubstantial differences.

              Your statement is so stupid it's beyond reality.

              Quod erat demonstrandum.

        • Re:Thanks parents (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @10:01AM (#57297134)

          This has nothing to do with how society evolves. This isn't socialization, this is turning kids into hermits. Studies have shown that smart phones and social media are addictive. The instant gratification of both boosts dopamine levels.. Pretty soon you get used to those elevated dopamine levels.. That's addiction.

          Or maybe this represents a solution to a problem, which is that face to face meetings, particularly with children, but also adults have some problems. Amongst them:

          1) Difficulty arranging transportation
          2) Difficulty agreeing on venue (particularly when parents refuse certain venues
          3) Inefficient use of time when in face to face scenario. I don't know about you, but when I meet with friends I already want it to be over before I walk in, I've got shit to do.
          4) Text communication provides all the actual value of interacting with another human, without messy realities and alpha-pack issues. Online anyone can be alpha, even if in a wheelchair, on a ventillator.
          5) Conversations are slow and painful, you can do other things while they go on, most don't really require tremendous intellect. But it's rude.
          6) You can respond when it is good for you, rather than immediately

          I'm sure I've missed a bunch. While I'm not clear on the dopamine correlation, I'm also not sure that's relevant. If your body is rewarding you for efficiency or satisfying some internal pressure (that may have been artificial to begin with, built in by parents/teachers because THEY thought it was important), that doesn't seem like a problem. Addiction is a problem when it interferes with your obligations or is putting your physical health in significant immediate threat. That's not happening here. If meeting someone face to face is required to keep your job, for example, and you don't do it, then you have a problem. But if it's so you calk talk to Susie about who Sally blew last night...fuck that shit, use text.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • > I don't recall the exact numbers, but something like
              > only 12% of High School Seniors have been on a date.

              Society has changed and viruses have evolved. Showing my age here. Back in the mid-1960's 12 and 13 year olds were going on dates and screwing. No problem. Today if a pair of 15-year-olds get caught having consensual sex in a jurisdiction where age-of-consent is 16, they *BOTH* end up on the sex-offender-registry for life. And back in the 60's, condoms were made fun of. If you caught something,

            • The dopamine is a very important factor. It's what creates the addiction. Your body doesn't always reward you for things that turn out to be positive in the long run. Eating a crapload of candy every day is a good example I think. Our bodies crave sugar & fats because they used to be very hard to get and are a good source of short term / long term energy. But, we have unlimited access to both today. Our mental reward for chomping down on a Snickers bar is causing some people a lot of problem.

              This is n

        • Re:Thanks parents (Score:5, Interesting)

          by unimacs ( 597299 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @11:54AM (#57298492)
          Moderation in all things. Make sure your kids are involved in outside activities. Allow them to have phones but monitor their use and set limits if need be.

          I have two teens and yes, they absolutely spend a lot of time interacting with their friends on social media. Just as previous generations might have spent hours on the phone in the evening. But they also love doing stuff with their friends. I've spent a lot of time shuffling my kids to/from other kids' houses and other places they meet people. They'll use their bikes too if where they're going is close enough. They go to and we've hosted many a sleepover.

          Even when it comes to gaming, which they can easily do from their individual homes, my son often prefers to pack up his laptop, console, Switch or whatever and go to somebody's house with 2 or 3 other guys and spend the night.

          As far as whether they prefer texting to an in person conversation, I think a lot depends on the person, the nature of the conversation, and the context.

          An interesting question to ask would be which choice would they make:

          A: You could never leave your house and you could never have friends over, but you could use social media to your hearts content
          B: You could never use social media again short of getting and sending invites, but you're free to interact with people in person

          There is no doubt that both would be crippling to a modern teen's social life, but I bet most would choose to interact exclusively in person vs never being able to interact in person.
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • by unimacs ( 597299 )
              I don't know what the actual numbers would be. More telling would be to have them actually live each way for few months and decide which they preferred.

              Really my point though was that having 35% of teens saying that texting is their favorite way to communicate with friends vs 32% of teens saying that talking in person is their favorite way doesn't tell the whole story. 33% of teens preferred some other means altogether. If you were to ask about close friends vs any friend or communicating with individual
      • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        "Keep your kid away from socializing online and they will become outcasts and misfits. You'd be proud as a parent and your kid would be fucked up."

        Is that what Mark and Evan told you?

        • Who and who?
          I personally am a forum person. I despise Facebook, Twitter and the like. But I am smart enough to realize my holy crusade would be quite don-quixotesque.
          Instead, I am teaching my kids to use those platforms wisely, understand the dangers, avoid the traps. Will I be successful? I hope. For now, they are too small to understand, instead choosing to trust me with what I am telling them.

          • by gnick ( 1211984 )

            my holy crusade would be quite don-quixotesque.

            quixotic [merriam-webster.com]

            • Newsflash, that isn't how words work.

              When somebody coins a specialized word, regular words that describe the same thing, still also mean the same thing. They do not call for correction.

              Don't be a lame false-pedant.

              • by gnick ( 1211984 )

                I assumed that somebody that would say "don-quixotesque" was unaware of the word "quixotic." If somebody said, "this flower is very fragrance-having," I might suggest "fragrant." I'm not sure I understand your objection.

                • I assumed

                  There is your mistake right there; you assumed, but then went on to offer purported corrections based on that, which is both lame and stupid.

                  Worse, you don't seem to comprehend the difference between matters of literary style, and the correct choice of words. Literary style that is merely different than what you assume you would have written is not any sort of mistake; it is not, for example, a stylistic mistake. Just a different writing style.

                  Calling out a writing style as if it is mistaken just shows your

            • Thank you.
              Didn't know that word existed. With English passing 1,000,000 words recently, combined with me not being a native English Speaker, I hope I'd be pardoned for not being aware of its existence. But now I know :)

              • by gnick ( 1211984 )

                Trying to be helpful. It's not a very common word, but it's a good fit for what I inferred from your term and has the same origin. Some other guy gave me hell for mentioning it.

      • If you're not going to raise a kid according to your own values, then what's the point?

        Fuck society's expectations - especially the expectations of the whiny peers your child will be competing against for jobs and resources in the future.

        • Re:Thanks parents (Score:4, Insightful)

          by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <<apoc.famine> <at> <gmail.com>> on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @12:58PM (#57299172) Journal

          If you're a dumbass, you'll try and fail to raise your kid according to your own values. If you're at all intelligent, you'll raise your kid to understand your values, but also understanding that your values were formed during your formative years a quarter to a half century ago, and that your kid will never have those same values because the world has changed, and they won't be growing up in the environment you grew up in.

          My kid won't grow up valuing manual labor, because there won't be that much for him to do. My kid won't value freedom at the expense of pain from growing up with a whole lot of scar tissue from trying to jump a sled over a barbed wire fence, from falling down a cliff while climbing in the woods at the age of 12, from a 40mph bike wipe-out on a highway hill, etc. He's not going to be able to survive in the wild for a couple of weeks if he has to. He's just not going to grow up in that world.

          Sure, I could relocate and try to recreate all that shit, but the world has changed so much that it won't matter.

          My kid is going to grow up in a world where pot is legal, and he can smoke it on his 18th birthday. My kid is going to grow up in a world where you can vape discretely at school, but where cigarettes are too expensive to buy. My kid is going to grow up in a world which has pervasive surveillance, but mercifully has at least invented private browsing sessions. My kid is going to grow up in a world where if he can get a visa gift card, he can make an email account and an amazon account and order anything in the world he wants, and potentially get home before me and hide it in his room.

          This world is so vastly different now that there is no hope in instilling my values onto my kid. The best I can do is let him know what they are and where I got them, and try to help him create his own value system, based on the reality of the world currently.

          And if you think "fuck society's expectations" is going to help your kid, you are dead wrong. Unless your kid wants to be a hermit, then that's the right path.

        • If you're not going to raise a kid according to your own values, then what's the point?

          The point is to raise your kids according to current society, not the one you were raised in.

      • Keep your kid away from socializing online and they will become outcasts and misfits.

        Yeah, but it isn't like anyone talks to the people who aren't outcasts and misfits anyways. They just get texts.

      • You're conflating two different issues: the societal issue of how smartphones are changing our culture vs. how an individual best responds to those changing conditions.

        That is to say, we can be upset about how smartphones are changing culture and the damage it does to relationships, but that doesn't mean we have to select abstinence for ourselves or our children.
    • You know this is Slashdot right? A place considered a haven for the stereotype guy living in his parents basement never going out and only communicating via computers.
      This stereotype is for the late baby boomers and gen X.
      Then we also had couch potatoes for kids who just sat there and watched TV all day.

      Preteen and teen years are just brutal. Most of your friends are just kids who have their own problems but are tolerating your presence with them. That is why when we grow up many of our high school friend

      • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        "Preteen and teen years are just brutal."

        Speak for yourself mate. We didn't all have mental health problems when we were that age or were so weak and inadequate that peer pressure dictated how we behaved and what we did. I had quite a good time when I was a teen FWIW.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Speak for yourself mate. We didn't all have mental health problems when we were that age or were so weak and inadequate that peer pressure dictated how we behaved and what we did. I had quite a good time when I was a teen FWIW.

          In my experience, the people who loudly proclaim how awesome of a time they had in their teens are usually part of the reason why other kids were so miserable.

          Middle school pretty much decided for me that I never wanted to have children, because kids at that age are fucking assholes -

          • by Anonymous Coward

            Found (one of the many) neckbeard(s).
            I bet attractive women suck too because they won't see what a nice guy you are.

          • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

            You really need to get over yourself, you sound like the typical whiny self pitying prick that every school has a few of, blaming everyone except themselves for their problems, jealous of anyone who seemed to be enjoying their life and still bitter years later nursing their grudges like an old whisky and still defined by them.

            FWIW no, I didn't bully anyone, I just got on with things. Perhaps I just went to a school with normal people since I didn't meet many sociopaths there.

    • Thanks parents for (lack of) raising such a shitty generation.

      The next generation doesn't do things like I did them. The world is coming to an end. They must be bad people- only my way of doing things is correct.

      There is nothing wrong if kids want to text rather than speak. If that's their preference, so be it.

  • Teens do what they see parents (or any other adult) are doing.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @02:48AM (#57295402)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Kids these days have it right. txting is far more efficient.... Unless you're my mother... Or one of those people who types "Please tell me what the current population of New York is." as a Google search.

  • by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @02:59AM (#57295450) Journal

    and his short story "The Machine Stops"?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • I remember when the only social media was go with your friends and have a good time. No internet on phones, no wifi, just talking and listening. And If you want to spend a time with some people you just go for a coffee or walk in the street with that person. Now we have all this with just a click on screen :( Mundoriego [mundoriego.es]
    • To you "old fashioned style" is when there was no internet on phones? Holy crap that makes me feel old. Not only do I remember when there was no internet on phones but I remember when there were no mobile phones and there was no internet.
    • We all are WAITING for other people to shut up so we can say what WE want to say. We talk at everybody wanting them to listen to us (and maybe settling for them just hearing us) but we try to hide our impatience while we wait for the next chance to talk some more. THINK about it. How often are you waiting for them to finish talking or jumping to summations of what they are expressing getting board having to wait for the next paragraph to come... or thinking about what you are going to say next as they tri

  • They were also more likely to say that social media was "extremely" or "every" important, compared to their peers who score high on the scale.

    Are these teens who speak English as a second language by any chance?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I'd rather read a text description of a news event or a tutorial than slog through a Youtube video of some dolt slowly describing it. Likewise a text message is often the more efficient way to send a brief tidbit of data without wasting time on rituals of politeness or getting sidetracked into "hey did you see that show about X" baloney which happens in spoken "communication"

  • by spiritplumber ( 1944222 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @05:05AM (#57295646) Homepage
    ITT: Old people yelling at the cloud.

    When I was a teen, it was mostly IRC, then came the various YM/AIM and ICQ (in my country at least, those were a later addition).

    At least now you don't have to worry about net splits or messing up someone's ICQ number.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Interpretive rape and pillage was the SMS of the 10th century. If you wanted to send someone a brief message, you'd hire a band of Vikings to communicate it through the subtle nuances of their raids.
        • Yourkshire accent:
          That’s nothin, when I were a lad we used to have to catch pigeons, and teach them to fly home. Then we had to do the tiniest writing on the message.
          You tell the young people of today that, and they dooont believe ya.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I can't tell you how often I've seen two teens sitting on a bench texting and wondered "are they here together, and are they texting each other?"

    Though, I have to admit, some of the more pathetic examples of this are seeing a family of four who have gone out for dinner ... and then all four of them have their faces buried in their phones.

    The extent to which smart phones have made people into zombies is frightening sometimes.

  • by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @06:39AM (#57295818)
    I'm just wondering how people are thinking when they answer these questions. Maybe the reason teens would rather text their friend than see them in person is that it would be such a hassle to get Dad to drive them over to their friend's house just to call them a turdmonger when it only takes a second to do so via text.
  • Have you talked to their friends?

    Yeah - I'd rather send them a text message than talk to them too......especially since I have text messaging on my phone completely blocked.

  • Well, I really don't know what the survey says, because none of the links provided in TFS leads to a copy of the actual survey. Without being able to look at the survey, it's impossible to evaluate the claims made in the overly-slick and somewhat glib 'executive summary'. That summary, in the absence of the actual questionnaire on which its conclusions are ostensibly based, is utterly meaningless and not at all newsworthy. Nothing to see here, move along please...

    • Pretty much like most of slashdot's summaries then.
      FWIW, my kid is 17, he says snapchat is the big thing at school, but he also goes over and hangs out with his friends almost every other night, so from what I see, it's not so much an either/or thing but a supplemental thing. Texting and social media are certainly easier and more rapid ways to communicate then having to travel across town to talk to someone in person.

    • You got what you deserved for clicking! Don't read that stuff.

  • I know a lot of ham radio operators that prefers to make HF DX QSO using CW or PSK31 rather than SSB. One could use a narrow IF filter and there's less QRM anyway.
  • In other words we are all becoming Victorian English. We would rather write a strongly worded letter than confront in person or send a Thank You note instead of thanking in person.
    Thank god for texting as it is leading to a revival of written communication which had been dying with the onslaught of overly gregarious extrovert types who got out of control with the invention of the phone and the automobile.

  • I'm an adult, and texting is a nice way of touching base with friends when you really don't have anything to say. Rather than call up for 15 minutes of attempting to find a conversation, you can send a text, or a picture, or something funny that made you think of them. And it's asynchronous so you don't have to worry if they pick up or not, or listen to a VM or not. Plenty of times a text 'conversation' turns into a phone call, because it's not great at high throughput the way a call can be. Plus when you can touch base with multiple people at a time. How much time did we waste on the phone talking for hours 'about nothing' according to our parents? Are we annoyed because 'kids today' can do it more efficiently?
  • I have 4 young 20-somethings.
    2 are Eagle Scouts, and getting them to actually go IN PERSON to visit local businesses and present their projects to ask for funding was far more anxiety producing and work than the whole planning and project execution.

    2 are daughters, and even when they're having drama issues or trouble getting things planned, if we suggest "well, why don't you just CALL them and get it sorted much faster than text/IG/whatever method they're using?" is met with incredulous stares.

  • A phone call takes more time and more effort than a text. It would be impossible to have contact with a wide group without some sort of asynchronous communication. Plus people rarely have downtime now - they are constantly doing stuff, even if that is Netflix.
  • The more isolated you are, the more avoidant you are of social contact; the threshold you have to overcome to go out and actually socialize with people F2F gets higher and higher. Then you get what they're talking about here.
  • I suppose speech-to-text has gotten good enough that you don't have to type your texts out anymore. I often get them when I'm driving, though. I suppose I could find a text app that reads them out with text-to-speech too. And it'd be great if I didn't have to look at the phone and could just dictate my response and have the phone send it back. Wait a minute...
  • Is it any surprise they don't want to talk to each other? They're all awful. I wouldn't talk to a teen either if I could help it.
  • ... with any text communications due to my speech and hearing impediments. I wished I was a teen again like I did with dial-ups! :P

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