Details here. The numbers are amazing: a couple of months ago, a junior in a Washington D.C. high school sent 6,807 text messages--in one month. More: "Market research indicates the consumers mostly likely to send and receive text messages are those between the ages of 13 and 24. Last year, 158 billion text messages were sent nationwide, nearly double the number in 2005, according to CTIA, the Wireless Association."
Wow. Well, it's not going away. But to me an important issue that has yet to be fully explored in the American mainstream (though it's getting attention in educational circles) is the question of multi-tasking. Because that's what all this text-messaging means--that multi-tasking has exploded in this country. Young people text in the midst of doing other things--driving, sitting in class, reading. Everyone thinks he or she can multi-task effectively; that he can text while reading a school textbook and do it all well. But research shows you can't. How are we going to convince folks that you can't drive and text, or read and IM and text, etc etc? I don't know, but we need to figure it out.
