Parents text to keep up with their teens

Parents will do anything to keep up with their kids, and in this Web 2.0 era, that means setting up profiles on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and whatever else is popular at the time. Sadly, most teens end up resenting their parents for trying too hard, while others feel like they're being spied on. Keeping up with teens is not easy, but according to a survey commissioned by Samsung Mobile, texting is helping parents communicate more with their teens, and has actually helped them improve their relationship.

The survey conducted by Kelton Research which included 300 teens and 500 parents, shows that 68 percent of parents connected with their kids by text message, while 56 percent of teens reported they now talk more to their parents since they began texting. Fifty-three percent of teens, and 51 percent of parents agree that texting has improved their relationship with each other. I'm sure these numbers will only continue to go up as more and more parents take up texting thanks to their children.

Last year, data revenues from cell phones surged 53 percent to $23 billion, and the CTIA says it was all mostly due to the increasing popularity of text messaging. Apparently, consumers sent a total of 363 billion SMS messages in 2007, with about 50 billion of those text messages sent in December 2007 alone. That's incredible, considering a total of only 81 billion text messages were sent in 2005.

So what's causing this exponential increase in text messaging? Well it could be that more and more adults are relying on this form of communication to not only connect with their teens, but also with everyone else in their lives. Market research firm M:Metrics said texting increased 130 percent in the past two years among adults age 45 to 54, and Sprint Nextel found that while adults and teens were the most active SMS users, mothers were the driving the growth.

And don't think for a minute companies and schools aren't noticing this growing texting trend among parents. York County, for example, has set up a website parents can use to text their teens on prom night. The site found at www.allonboard.org is for parents concerned about underage drinking, that allows them to send a short text message that reads "B smart. B safe. Hav fun 2nite. Dnt drink. Luv u!!!"

The parent-child texting relationship is about to get a lot more interesting. I just hope texting parents don't end up overwhelming their kids in the end.

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