Okay this is definitely the weirder of surveys that I have seen in a while and the fact that it is coming from Rogers, a Canadian wireless and cable provider, makes it a little bit more disconcerting.

It seems that Rogers thought it would be a good idea to team up with Angus Reid, a Canadian survey taking company, to find out  some more information about who is using texting to hookup with someone or to dump their current partner.

The survey was done between January 13 to January 23 2012 and looked for 1,403 random Canadians who owned a smartphone or tablet and used texting, social networks, video calling, email, or instant messaging. The stated goal of the survey was to find out if the “passion for gadgets and social media hurt human interaction or improved it“.

Here’s some of the results:

• 25% say the use of technology to stay connected keeps their relationship exciting
•  Quebecers were the highest with 31% agreeing with the above statement
•  18-24 year olds spend 2.5 hours/day using tech to communicate to their boyfriend/girlfriend
•  48% of those surveyed have been asked out over the phone
•  18% of those surveyed admitted to being dumped over the phone
•  31% of 18-24 year olds surveyed said they’ve been asked out via a social networking (Facebook)
•  60% of 25-34 year olds surveyed have been asked out over the phone
•  27% of 18-24 year olds think it is fine to ask someone out on a first date through a text message
•  40% of 18-24 year olds say they’ve been asked out in a text message
•  12% of those surveyed have been dumped via text message

Want more, then head over to Rogers for more of the scoop.

via MobileSyrup

Rogers Canada has the lowdown on who’s hooking up and who’s getting dumped via text is a post from: The Inquisitr

And in one reply to a misdirected text, we remember a lot of what is brilliant about dads.

Accidental Text Win is a post from: The Inquisitr

Common sense to be something in real short supply these days as one new study out shows that more people are texting while they are driving despite concerted efforts from law enforcement and other organizations to show how dangerous this practice is.

According to new data from the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) the number of people ‘caught’ texting while driving has jumped from 0.6% in 2009 to 0.9% in 2010. This increase has been reflected in the number of accidents related to texting while driving which came in at around the 3,000 mark.

The NHTSA says that they expect to see an increase of 2,300% in the number of accidents due to texting while driving which is why they have led the call for the ban of all texting while driving.

“Using a cell phone while driving is the equivalent of having a blood alcohol concentration level of .08%, the legal limit in most states,” the NHTSA said in a statement. “Using a cell phone can reduce the brain activity associated with driving by 37%.”

via TechnoBuffalo

It should also be noted that in July a Governors Highway Association study found that up to 25% of car crashes in the US is associated with drivers being distracted by some sort of gadget.

Personally I think that anyone caught texting while driving should have their license taken away from them for a number of years equal to the number of words in the last text they sent or read while driving. Texting is the new DUI and can kill just as easily.

image courtesy of TechnoBuffalo

New study says texting while driving on the rise is a post from: The Inquisitr

Sure, text messages mean you don’t have to actually talk to your mom on the phone, but then there is this.

Seduction, Texting Style is a post from: The Inquisitr

A federal study conducted by the National Highway Transportation Safety Association has found that text messaging while driving has jumped by 50% over the last year. That increase comes despite federal and state campaigns to bring awareness to the dangers of text messaging while driving.

To conduct their study officials stood on intersections and discovered that nearly 1% of drivers were text messaging while stopped, up from .06% in 2009.

The organization also performed a phone survey in which they discovered 18% of drivers say they text message while driving. When interviewing drivers from the ages of 21-to-24-years-old that number increased to nearly 50%.

A representative for the Governors’ Highway Safety Association says that it has become clear that texting won’t be stopped by:

“It is clear that educational messages alone.”

The agency hopes that their findings will lead to stronger laws that enforce putting the phone down while driving. The agency says:

“Many drivers won’t stop texting until they fear getting a ticket.”

One such law can be witnessed in Pennsylvania where texting while driving was banned in November after 32,885 deaths were witnessed in 2010, a drop of nearly 3% from the year prior.

In my state of Illinois texting or talking on a cell phone in a school zone comes with a first time fine that increases with each offense and more than 35 other states now have texting and cell phone use laws enacted and more states continue to add and change their texting and calling laws on a regular basis.

Do you think more severe texting while driving laws need to be enacted to end the dangerous practice?

[Image via ShutterStock.com]

NHTSA Study: Texting While Driving Increases By 50% is a post from: The Inquisitr

I never went to college, even though I was accepted to one of the best art colleges in Canada, so I’ll have to pretty well take what HackCollege is saying with this handy dandy infographic on the cuff. Those of you who have been, or are going to college will probably be better qualified to attest to the veracity of this information, or not.

It turns out though that some 95 percent of college students are texting every single day, and 97% of those students who have smartphones are using them for social networking and 88 percent are texting regularly in class.

via Geekosystem

College student life changed forever by cellphones [Infographic] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Kind of a win-win for the person doing the telling if you take this approach.

Bad News via Text Message is a post from: The Inquisitr

This is a trick answer, the real proper usage frequency is never. Never use LOL in a text message.

[Graph] Proper Use of LOL in a Text Message is a post from: The Inquisitr

Except for that one glorious moment where you told your mom texting existed and you thought for a second your phone torment would be lessened.

Teaching Your Mom Textspeak is a post from: The Inquisitr

Two gentlemen carry their dispute over a young lady into the text messaging format. Hilarity ensues.

A Polite Request, Via Text is a post from: The Inquisitr

Texting has to be the biggest form of message sharing that we have today and the wireless carriers are laughing all the way to the bank with every one that is sent.

First some basic facts about SMS texting and its cost courtesy of a great post by Knowlton Thomas at TechVibes.

Let’s suppose you text your friend the following: “Yo Joe, what’s up bud?”. Well it turns out that a short message like that ends up costing the carrier 1/1,000 of a cent. So if you send out anywhere around a 1,000 messages it might end up costing the carrier one single penny and for those of you that are message crazy, well, you might cost the carrier two cents.

But here’s the thing, most carrier have a package deal for your monthly texting costs that get charged to your bill and most of them are around the $5 mark so in effect the carrier is making $4.98 profit each and every month from every single subscriber who has a texting plan.

Then there are those that have pay-as-you-go plan, and this is where it gets insane because in most cases those people are paying 20¢ per message which means the carrier is making 0.19.999¢ profit on each message.

Now to add insult to injusry – it seems that most times these messages actually don’t cost the carrier anything.

But as if this isn’t ridiculous enough already, there’s icing on the cake: SMS are piggybacked onto cellular networks. This means that text messages occupy, as William puts it, “otherwise unused space in a control channel used for network maintenance.” So texting, most of the time, doesn’t even cost your wireless carrier that fraction of a penny. It costs them, quit literally, nothing.

via TechVibes

And the carriers wonder why their customers hate them.

Ever wondered how badly you’re getting screwed by your carrier over SMS, because you are. is a post from: The Inquisitr

…still combing my hairs.

When you say you’re on your way is a post from: The Inquisitr

Autocorrect is an accident waiting to happen with your parents, and here are five examples of why you should just pick up the phone and call your mom.

[Source]

[Pics] 5 parental autocorrect fails is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a recent study by Ipsos in the U.S. between December 10, 2010 and January 5, 2011 they found that 75% of the 2,000 adults that took part in the survey felt that mobile manners have worsened since the last study was done in 2009.

An Intel researcher, Genevieve Bell, said of the results of the study, which was again sponsored by Intel, that it’s no surprise that people are still struggling with how to integrate all these new devices into their lives.

The study also found that:

• U.S. adults see an average of five mobile “offenses,” including the use of mobile devices while driving or talking loudly on a mobile phone in public, every day.
• One in five adults admit to checking a mobile device before getting out of bed in the morning.
• Of the 91% of respondents who reported seeing offenses, 56% saw car drivers using a mobile device, 48% saw people using one in a restroom, 32% saw them used in movie theaters and 9% saw the devices used by people on a honeymoon.
• Nearly 25% of U.S. adults say they have seen a person use a laptop computer while driving.

via PC World

New study says mobile users are ruder than ever is a post from: The Inquisitr

It may seem so insignificant typing those words into your phone to send to some-one you know and love; but it isn’t so insignificant when you are driving.

In an effort to save the lives of kids who don’t think twice about texting while driving AT&T has released a short documentary that hopes to make kids realize how dangerous this practice is.

As a parent you should be making sure your kids see this documentary – your grandkids will thank you.

via Engadget

Texting documentary from AT&T a heartbreaker – make your kids watch it is a post from: The Inquisitr

In news that may be shocking to two or three parents nationwide, teenagers are not actually falling asleep straight after “going to bed.”

Studies indicate these teenagers may actually be retiring to their rooms to engage in some late-night textual healing, engaging in text messaging sessions that have gone on for as long as four hours. Attending physician at the JFK Medical Center sleep lab in Edison, New Jersey Dr. Peter Polos says that in the 40 students they sample-studied, kids sent an average of 33.5 texts or emails each night after bedtime, in time frames ranging from 10 minutes to the four hour figure.

Dr. Polos says it’s not the kids per se, but the devices that are enabling the sleep deficits:

”It reaffirms my suspicion that the availability of these media to children can or will have a significant impact on their quality and quantity of sleep,” Polos tells WebMD.

He also commented on the frequency and volume of media consumed and transmissions sent by kids these days:

The average number of texts sent per month including weekend nights after bedtime was 3,404 per person, Polos found. “That number reflects a portion of children who were excessively using the media.”

The older the student, the more time he or she was likely to spend texting and emailing after bedtime.

“Most of the 40 students reported either learning, behavioral, or cognitive issues,” Polos tells WebMD.

“This [emailing and texting] is more stimulatory than television, I think,” says Polos.

The study found that boys are more likely to stay awake surfing the internet or playing a game, whereas girls tend to engage in more social sleep distractions.

[WebMD]

Breaking: Teens texting all night, are tired in school is a post from: The Inquisitr

As a society we seem to love nothing better than creating psychological disorders around every new fad that comes our way and it seems that texting is no different.

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia has a post up today where Jennie Carroll, a Melbourne technology researcher with RMIT University claims to have discovered four separate disorders when it comes to texting and out children.

Yes folks, our children are once again in danger from themselves and this wicked texting thing because they just don’t know any better.

She says teenagers who text too much could find themselves suffering from:

- Textaphrenia: thinking you’ve heard or felt a new text message vibration when there is no message.

- Textiety: a feeling of anxiety from not receiving or sending any text messages.

- Post-traumatic text disorder: injuries related to texting, such as walking into objects by not paying attention to your surroundings.

- Binge texting: sending massive amounts of texts to build self-esteem among peers.

Oh please.

As stupid as this list might be the scary part is that it will probably get all kinds of press and be claimed as the next big danger. The upside of course that each of those items will probably end up being a whole new revenue stream for the head doctors which they can use to pay for that new BMW.

Aussie news site posts list of texting disorders – I don’t know whether to laugh or cry is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a 2009 Pew Internet & American Life Project study they found that 47 percent of adults who actually use text messaging admitted that they would text and drive at the same time. In contrast only 34 percent of teens between the age of 16 to 17 would text and drive.

The study then suggested that when using those numbers it means that 27 percent of all American adults have text messaged while driving.

Pew interviewed 2,252 adults in the past two months, of which 1,917 owned a cell phone and 1,189 said they used text messages.

The news comes as more Americans than ever are using cell phones and sending texts. Pew found that 82 percent of Americans over age 18 now have a cell phone and 58 percent of them text. About 75 percent of teens have mobile phones and 66 percent send texts.

Source: PC Mag

Some of the other numbers that the study found are

• 51 percent of men text while driving
• 42 percent of women text while driving
• the 18 to 33 age group are most likely to text while driving
• 56 percent of black adults text while driving
• 58 percent of Hispanic adults text while driving
• 46 percent of white adults text while driving
• 44 percent of respondents have seen dangerous behavior as related to cell phones – Web browsing, video watching, picture-taking, or gaming. \

I hate to say this but I am not the least bit surprised with much of the findings in the study.

Adults more likely than teens to text and drive, men more than women is a post from: The Inquisitr

Or like this dude, you might have to go to church.

[Failbook]

Always practice safe sexts… is a post from: The Inquisitr

Data for coordination of terrorist attacks not yet evaluated.

[GraphJam]

Graph: Practical use of texting, media vs. reality is a post from: The Inquisitr