Compulsive social media activity detrimental for teenage females

News media internationally have covered the news of a research study that parents of teenage daughters and surely school teachers would view as a keen sense of the obvious: obsessive social media – in particular texting – activity is detrimental to such obsessive texters’ performance in school.

The study, published by the American Psychological Association in its journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture ® appears to be the first major research study to link compulsive texting with poor academic performance and various other intertwined problems.

The study’s data were based on a sample set consisting of over 400 mid-teenaged girls and boys aged living a semi-rural town in the Midwest.

Additionally, the study apparently further noted that the average teenager sends around 3,339 texts per month (or roughly 7 per every waking hour of the day), with each gender found to be texting at similar rates.

While the study appears to have failed to adjust for the lack of other things to do in a small and most likely all but isolated small town where the study was conduced, at least the finding of a significant difference between the impact of texting upon teenaged girls and that for teenage boys is likely solid.

Specifically, study co-author Kelly Lister-Landman PhD, a clinical psychologist at Delaware County Community College, noted that:

“(B)orrowing from what we know about internet communication, prior research has shown that boys use the internet to convey information while girls use it for social interaction and to nurture relationships.”

Quincy Quarry hopes to perhaps eventually reach out to Dr. Lister-Landman to follow up with her  on the study’s findings.

The Quarry would also appreciate the opportunity to ask her to speculate on the impact of obsessive texting and social media updating by female adults.
For example, if there is any potential detriment from Quincy’s number one ward heeler all but constantly appearing to be spend much of her time during City Council meetings as well as apparently a fair chunk of the rest of her waking hours updating her outbound Facebook trafficking and but selectively responding to incoming emails from her constituents.

Specifically, might the ward heeler’s increasingly apparent stupification be a result of obsessive activity with e-media or simply be innate?