New research suggests that teen girls who are addicted to texting are more likely to do worse academically than their male counterparts with the same habit.
American researchers found that only girls showed a negative association between this type of texting and school performance, which included grades, school bonding and feeling academically competent, "It appears that it is the compulsive nature of texting, rather than sheer frequency, that is problematic," Kelly M. Lister-Landman, lead researcher of the study, said in a statement. "Compulsive texting is more complex than frequency of texting. It involves trying and failing to cut back on texting, becoming defensive when challenged about the behavior, and feeling frustrated when one can't do it."
For the study, researchers surveyed 403 students in grades eight and 11 from schools in a semi-rural town in the Midwest, NBC News reported. Most came from households with two parents (68 percent) and were primarily white (83 percent), which was representative of the demographic characteristics in the school district. They used this information to examine whether texting interfered with study participants' ability to complete tasks; how preoccupied they were with texting; and whether they tried to hide their texting behavior, among other relevant factors.
"Borrowing from what we know about Internet communication, prior research (e.g., Baron, 2004) has shown that boys use the Internet to convey information while girls use it for social interaction and to nurture relationships," Lister-Landman said. "Girls in this developmental stage also are more likely than boys to ruminate with others, or engage in obsessive, preoccupied thinking, across contexts. Therefore, it may be that the nature of the texts girls send and receive is more distracting, thus interfering with their academic adjustment."
Lister-Landman told CBS News parents could remedy this by encouraging open lines of communication with their teens about texting behaviors and starting conversations that would help them understand their children more.
"It would be helpful for parents to look for signs of whether texting seems stressful for their teens, particularly if they have difficulty cutting back their texting or seem anxious when they are unable to text," Lister-Landman said.
The findings are detailed in journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture.
