Sleep Texting
You’re burrowed down inside the covers. Your eyes are closed, and you’re about to enter Dreamland.
Beep!
A text. Automatically, you fumble for your phone. Bleary-eyed, you read the text and answer before dropping back into a stupor. The next morning you get a call. It’s your best friend.
“What did you mean? You texted me a bunch of gibberish last night. Was that code? Or were you just mad?”
“What you’re talking about?” You grab your phone to check what you sent: soki yes i sdlkfj jjk eiw.
And there it is–Sleep Texting.
Nursing professor Elizabeth Dowdell, of Villanova University reported in an interview with a CBS news affiliate in Philadelphia, that she has discovered a new phenomena she calls “sleep texting.” . . .—teenagers sending text messages while at least partially asleep. It occurs when a teen receives a text, becomes aware of their phone beeping, and then responds—quite often with gibberish, but sometimes with words they never intended to use. See full article here.
Yikes! Does this mean you could agree to something you want no part of? Or make a date with someone you can’t stand? Or reveal a deep dark secret?
Evidently, yes. But it gets even worse:
Dowdell attributes the behavior to overextended teens and says being partially woken by a beeping phone on a regular basis can lead to sleep deprivation, weight gain, depression and other mental disorders.
That’s some serious stuff. What’s the answer? I often suggest to my sleepy high school students that they turn off their phones at night. They look at me as if I’d sprouted an extra nose. Then I suggest they could leave their phones on but in a different room. Add an extra sprouted ear to the top of my head.
Sigh.
This is one extra reason I’m grateful for long weekends like the one we just enjoyed. Hopefully, my teen friends got some extra sleep. It’d be nice to greet wide-eyed, bright, rested students during first period.
What about you? Do you get enough sleep? Are you interrupted with constant texting all night? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
As always, thanks for stopping by.
Brenda
P.S. My new Young Adult novel The Lance Temptation was just released! I’d love to have you grab a copy and tell me what you think!
