100 text messages a day. Ouch, my thumb.

That’s how often teenage girls are texting. Which kind of makes you wonder where they find the time to do the things teenage girls are MEANT to do. Like lie to their parents, hang out on Facebook and spend hours in the bathroom doing their hair.

Bloomberg news reports:

HIGH school girls typically send and receive 100 text messages a day, according to a study, which found that cheaper mobile-phone plans have boosted the technology’s popularity among young people.

The percentage of Americans aged 12 to 17 who use text messaging to contact friends daily reached 54 per cent last year, double the figure in 2006, according to a study released on Tuesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The growth rate outpaced the increase in daily use of email and wireless calls.

The surging use of text messages bodes well for mobile-phone makers because teenagers tend to become reliant on their wireless devices without realising it, said Scott Campbell, one of the study’s co-authors.

Texting teens are 42 per cent more likely to leave their phones on or near their beds when they go to sleep than those that don’t send texts, the study found. ”They say that if a friend texts them in the night they want to wake up and answer it,” said Campbell, an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan.

”Nothing really seems to bother them about their dependence on the technology.”

Three-quarters of US teenagers have mobile phones, up from 45 per cent in 2004, the researchers found.

You know, it feels like the seismic shift in communication and lifestyle due to technology is so much greater than in any generation before us. When I was a teenager, my life was not that much different to my parents when they were the same age. There were phones, TV, cars. A few things were new for us like colour TV and video recorders and answering machines but mostly, there wasn’t much difference. It was easy for our parents to set rules and boundaries and help us solve our problems because they’d experienced very similar ones when they were the same age.

But now? What experience do parents have with being a teenager and sending 100 text messages a day? Or having friends communicate with you 24/7? Or being bullied or flirted with while you’re alone in your bedroom? It’s a whole new ballgame and it’s no wonder some parents are freaking out. Not to mention kids.

I was talking to someone who works for a phone company recently and they were telling us that teenage girls are becoming very stressed by their phones and by technology because they felt they had to remain in constant contact on their phones and online to monitor what was being said about them.

How bloody exhausting does that sound?

I know from experience it is soooo easy to let technology and communication creep insidiously into every aspect of your life. I’ve found that having an iphone has changed my life considerably. Now, instead of having a phone with me 24/7, I have a computer in my pocket wherever I go. This is both the best and worst thing. And it’s insidious the way it creeps up on you.

I check my phone constantly. I look at Twitter and Mamamia and I field texts and send them and it NEVER ENDS. Nowhere is sacred. I’ve even been known to check my phone IN THE SHOWER.

And now I have kids and I have to try and manage their own technology use while trying to model appropriate behaviour. Still working on that last bit.

Do you ever feel like this? What’s your relationship with your phone like? Do you find that being in constant contact with the world has enhanced or taken away from your life? Do you have any hard and fast rules about your own technology use?

How many times have you texted today?

AND…….If you haven’t already subscribed to the Mamamia daily  email, you really, seriously  should. That way, you won’t miss what’s  going on around here each day  and it will give you something fun and  interesting to divert your  attention away from the 3pm blahs every day.

So go here.