Teenage Girls Send 100 Texts per Day, Pew Report Says

Text messaging has skyrocketed among U.S. teenagers, with a third of those surveyed sending more than 100 text messages a day, the Pew Internet & American Life Project shared in an April 20 report.
In September 2009, 54 percent of teenagers surveyed sent text messages daily, which was up from 38 percent 18 months earlier. Additionally, 50 percent of teenagers surveyed were found to send 50 or more texts a day—or 1,500 texts per month—while one in three sent more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 a month.
While boys average 20 texts a day (they didn’t study my son!), among teenage girls ages 14 to 17, 100 messages a day was the average.

"They are using [mobile phones] to share stories and photos. They are using them to entertain themselves when they are bored. They are using them to micro coordinate their schedules and face-to-face gather­ings. And some are using their phones to go online to browse the Web, to participate in social networks and check their e-mails," the Pew report said.

In addition, "This is the sunny side of the story. Teens are also using mobile phones to cheat on tests and to skirt rules at school and with their parents. Some are using their phones to send sexts, others are sleeping with buzzing phones under their pillows, and some are using their phones to place calls and text while driving," the report said.
Text messaging among American teenagers is also far outpacing teenagers abroad. While 72 percent of young people in the United States typically send and receive 50 texts a day, that figure drops to 15 to 20 texts among Korean, Danish or Norwegian teenagers, according to Pew.

"Changes in subscription packages have encouraged widespread texting among U.S. teens and has made them into world-class texters," Pew said.

While "all you can eat" mobile subscriptions are enormously popular—and big enablers of teenagers' texting habits—the popularity of devices such as the Apple iPhone has challenged mobile operators' ability to meet the growing traffic of their networks, and several have suggested that variable network pricing will soon have to replace many no-limit plans.

With increased mobile phone use, stated the report, comes access to video sharing and recording, as well as to the Internet, which makes discussions about safety issues and potential regulations necessary. Parents should be equipped with tools for regulating their children's use of mobile devices.

"Understanding how youth use mobile phones is vital to creating effective policy based on the reality of how the technology is used. It is also important to understand how telecommunications company policies and pricing affect how teens and parents use their phones," the report stated.

Pew added that, for all the texting teenagers do, when it comes to trying to reach parents, voice calling tends to be their mobile mode of choice.

(eWeek.com)

Social networks are GOLDMINE for cybercriminals

Article from ZDNet:

“Symantec released its latest Internet Security Threat Report volume XV. Here are some of its findings:

- Given the potential for monetary gain from compromised corporate intellectual property (IP), cybercriminals have turned their attention toward enterprises. The report found that attackers are leveraging the abundance of personal information openly available on social networking sites to synthesize socially engineered attacks on key individuals within targeted companies.

- Cybercrime attack toolkits have lowered the bar to entry for new cybercriminals, making it easy for unskilled attackers to compromise computers and steal information. One such toolkit calledZeus (Zbot), which can be purchased for as little as $700, automates the process of creating customized malware capable of stealing personal information. Using kits like Zeus, attackers created literally millions of new malicious code variants in an effort to evade detection by security software.

- 2009 saw dramatic growth in the number of Web-based attacks targeted at PDF viewers; this accounted for 49 percent of observed Web-based attacks. This is a sizeable increase from the 11 percent reported in 2008.

- In 2009, Symantec identified more than 240 million distinct new malicious programs, a 100 percent increase over 2008.

- 75 percent of enterprises surveyed experienced some form of cyber attack in 2009.

- It was estimated that Downadup was on more than 6.5 million PCs worldwide at the end of 2009. Thus far, machines still infected with Downadup/Conficker have not been utilized for any significant criminal activity, but the threat remains a viable one.”

BE AWARE OF WHAT YOU’RE EXPOSING! :-)

-SuperDale

“But Dale…I bought an Apple because I was told it was “safer”….hmmmm

Interesting article:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=7879

Lesson to be learned: NOTHING is un-hackable.  I personally feel that Apple has had what I call “The Titanic Syndrome”… “We’re unsinkable!”

I’ve got family members who are running Apples with no spyware/antivirus, because they are convinced that they’re safe…Wrong!

-SuperDale