Since my last post was about reading SMS messages while half asleep, I had to post about this article claiming sleep texting was on a rise (HuffingtonPost, CNet). Basically, teens are responding to Texts while half asleep and then not remembering doing this the next morning and this is apparently a crisis. I don’t agree that it is a crisis. It is the same thing as people picking up phone calls when half asleep and then not remembering it the next day (I used to be notorious for this in College). Or talking to someone in the room half asleep and not remembering it.
Earlier this week, a CBS affiliate in Philadelphia spoke with Dr. Elizabeth Dowdell, a professor of nursing at Villanova University, who believes that more and more teens may be texting in their sleep
“It’s something new. We’re just starting to get a handle on it,” Dowdell told The Huffington Post. “I think that we will start to see more of this as cell phones become much more accessible at all ages.”
With sleep texting, the beep of a cell phone lightly awakens a person, so he or she will reach over and respond to a message (sometimes with jibberish). However, the person has no memory of having done so in the morning.
The best part is that the Doctor who started all this drama (Dowdell) hasn’t even conducted proper research on this, it’s based on anecdotal evidence that is blown out of proportion by the media who wanted a headline and what better one than protecting the kids from themselves! Just because texting is a technology that mostly kids use and adults don’t like, doesn’t make this a crisis and to use it as an excuse to shove more pills down the poor kids throats is not right.
Well this is all for now. Will write more later (maybe in my sleep).
– Suramya