Teens just gotta text

Today’s hyper-social teens are compulsive communicators, writes Jeffrey Zaslow in the Wall Street Journal.

A 17-year-old boy, caught sending text messages in class, was recently sent to the vice principal’s office at Millwood High School in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The vice principal, Steve Gallagher, told the boy he needed to focus on the teacher, not his cellphone. The boy listened politely and nodded, and that’s when Mr. Gallagher noticed the student’s fingers moving on his lap.

He was texting while being reprimanded for texting.

“Educators who try to be enlightened” have persuaded themselves that texters, twitterers and Facebook checkers have “attention scope” which is just as good as having an attention span. They’re multi-tasking. Others say they’re wasting time on trivia.

Vice-Principal Gallagher can’t get students to leave their communication devices at home. “It’s like talking to kids about why they don’t need air.”