Mobile Phones Lead To Teenage Sex And Violence

from the sue-the-carriers!--sue-the-handset-makers! dept

A few studies have come out over the past few weeks, and when put together, paint an odd picture of our new mobile phone culture. First, there was a study, as pointed out by Engadget (which seems to be down right now) last week, saying that in Japan students who were arrested tended to use their mobile phones more than those goodie-goodies who stayed out of jail and off the phone. Yes, this seems like an odd sort of anti-mobile phone study, but it only gets worse. A study in the UK found that people who are "super-users" of mobile phones (people who can't put their phone down, and use it for a variety of things, such as their clock, their contact book and their radio) tend to only hang out with other super-users. Since they stay in contact with each other that way, it's only natural that they hang out together more -- though, when combined with that first study someone who doesn't necessarily understand the different between correlation and causation could make the case that cliques of "bad kids" all hang out together because they have mobile phones. And, just what are they doing when they hang out together, beyond getting arrested? Well, according to this study in Norway, kids who use mobile phones aren't just more likely to be hanging out together, they're much more likely to be having sex with each other. That's right, kids with mobile phones were much more likely to be engaging in a bit more than SMS text messaging with members of the appropriate sex. With these three studies (admittedly, all done in separate countries), we may have just proven that mobile phones make kids join up with the "bad kids" in cliques that go around getting arrested and having teenaged sex. Where are the lawyers to protect us from this awful menace? Ah, well, mostly they're in the US, and as the UK study points out, since US kids are more likely to be sitting at home on their computer IMing instead of using their mobile phones for SMSing, they're in a "more insular environment" where they don't leave home. Thank goodness! By being stuck at their computer they can't be out getting arrested and getting naked with other teens (though, they can still view porn online). Clearly, to protect our country from sex-crazed, mobile-phone-wielding criminal teens, we should stomp out this whole text messaging thing right now. (Quick note for the humor impaired: the previous post should be read with a sarcasm-enabled browser).