Texting Improves Parent-Teen Relationships?

A survey commissioned by Samsung suggests that over half of American teens and their parents would say that text messaging has improved their relationship.

It’s rare that technology actually gets credit for improving parent-teen relations rather than purported serving as another generational divide, but Samsung claims text messaging has actually moved the two groups closer together. According to a survey commissioned by the Japanese mobile giant, teens report better relationships with their parents since picking up texting.

The results show that 53 percent of teens who text would credit texting with improved parental relations, while on the other side of the relationship, 51 percent of parents who text would make the same statement about their kids, and say that they communicate more often with them than before. If it seems that the results are skewed because only a small percentage of parents actually text with their kids, think again: the survey also found that 68 percent of parents text with their kids.

Besides the surprising results suggesting improved parent-teen relations, the survey also turned up surprising data about the sheer volume of communication kids are carrying out via texting. On average, it found that teens send 455 text messages per month and receive 467, an average of 15 sent and 16 received daily. For their part, parents send 84 and receive 96.

The survey, carried out by Kelton Research, included 300 American kids between 13 and 19, and 500 American parents with kids between 13 and 19.