Common Sense Media published a study that American teenagers prefer to communicate via text instead of meeting face-to-face, which doesn't bode well when they grow up to enter the workforce.
More than two-thirds of American teens between 13 to 17 years old, choose remote communication -- including texting, social media, video conversation and phone conversation. This is significantly increased from the last study in 2012.
Leigh Richardson, licensed professional counselor and the founder of the Brain Performance Center, said faces buried in their smartphones, isn't setting up teens for success as adults.
“You don’t know how to make eye contact. You don’t even really know the fine the art of small talk. They don’t know how to read a room. They don’t even know how to read what their friends may be saying with their body language,” said Richardson.
She said this really is a problem because we’re escaping reality.
“One of the most important things is being able to make eye contact and keep that eye contact. They’re losing all that social cueing,” said Richardson.
Other study takeaways:
- While the average person checks their phone 110 times a day, 78 percent of teens check their smartphones at least hourly and 72 percent check it immediately if they get a push notification.
- Some 54 percent of the teens who use social networks said it steals attention away from those in their physical presence.
- Two-fifths of them said time spent on social media prevents them from spending more time with friends in person.
- The most-used platform for this age group is Snapchat (63 percent), followed by Instagram (61 percent) and Facebook (43 percent).