• A texting driver is 23 times more likely to get into a crash than a non-texting driver (2009, VTTI, Texting Raises Crash Risk 23 Times, Study Finds)
• 49% of drivers with cell phones under the age of 35 send or read text messages while driving (2011, Harris Poll, Most Drivers With Cell Phones Use Them While Driving Even Though They Know It Is Unsafe; More Than One In Five Text While Driving).

And while there are a number of approaches to addressing the problem, none of them seem to be particularly effective. Actually, the problem is growing so dramatically that researchers are calling on the tech industry to create technology that makes it impossible for people to use cellphones when driving.

Current approaches include the following:

1. Education to deter texting while driving - many different government and private organizations have been publicizing the dangers of mobile phone use while driving and texting while driving, to little effect. (Keeping an Eye on Distracted Driving)
2. Legislation to ban cell phone use and/or texting while driving - there are currently bans on hand-held mobile phone use while driving in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and almost 40 US states currently ban texting while driving. This has had little to no effect. (Keeping an Eye on Distracted Driving). Some researcher hypothesize that this is due to the fact that drivers continue to talk and text while driving, just doing so in a more stealthy manner.
3. Technology to disable cell phone use while at driving speeds - this approach is problematic from a number of standpoints, including the fact that this may interfere with emergency communications (calling in or out), and the phone user may or may not be driving (e.g. a passenger).

Tech Solution to Texting-While-Driving?

Nobody embarks on parenthood thinking “my kid is going to become an addict.” To the contrary, when my husband and I decided to have children, we thought we’d be dealing them a pretty decent gene pool since addiction had not been an issue in our immediate families of origin. We also assumed that as good role models and caring, involved parents, our offspring wouldn’t have trouble with substances, especially since he and I never touched illegal drugs, and are very moderate consumers of alcohol.

But since our daughter died of an overdose in 2009, I am staggered by the number of colleagues, friends, and strangers who have confided in me about their family’s horrific experience with substances. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University cites Adolescent Substance Abuse as America’s #1 public health problem. Any family could be hit next. Education does not guarantee immunity: Amy was a junior in the nursing program at Boston College when she voluntarily entered treatment.

Cell phone use and texting were one of the more painful themes in my daughter’s story. Like many parents, after the September 11, 2001attacks we wanted her to have a cell phone in the event of emergency. She was in seventh grade at the time. But battles over cell phone use persisted until the day before she died; my muscle memory still tenses every time the Verizon bill arrives. At least I can smile when I walk into the department store when I first texted her with “Wassup?” which evoked affectionate laughter.

My daughter texted about drugs during her six years of progressive use but was always steps ahead of our ability to keep up. Monitoring software was not available then; we’d confiscate the phone when we were suspicious only to read messages that were sometimes weeks old, so we were always behind the curve. Indeed, Dr. John Knight, who directs the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research at Boston Children’s Hospital, notes that kids are clever, it’s part of their survival to mask substance use, and it’s not uncommon for two and a half years to elapse from the start of experimentation until parents are aware that something is going on. Knowing what your kids are texting could provide vital early warnings.

Keeping your kids safe while letting them grow and become independent is an increasingly tough job. And while I am neither a professional nor researcher in this area, from my experience I’d say to make sure your child understands that YOU own the phone, and they have no right to absolute privacy. Your job is to help keep your kids safe while teaching them how to keep themselves safe. You need to choose to what extent you monitor your children’s communications and online activities. Fortunately, better tools are increasingly available today; I wish they had been around a few years ago. They may not have made a difference in my daughter’s outcome, but if you think they might help your parenting, what do you have to lose? Better safe than sorrow.

Melissa Weiksnar is the author of Heroin’s Puppet –Amy (and her disease) http://www.amelibro.com/heroinspuppet/

When we published some statistics on teen texting a while back, there was a very animated discussion about this. On one side of the discussion are the people who feel that:

• Parents should trust their children
• Monitoring is the result of insecure parents
• Kids have the same right to privacy that adults do

On the other side of the debate are parents who feel that:

• Sometimes we need to protect kids from others (for example, in cases of cyber-bullying, online predators, etc.)
• Sometimes we need to protect kids from themselves (for example, in cases where they are making bad decisions about drugs, sexting, etc.)
• Kids don’t have the same right to privacy as adults, and this falls under the “my roof, my rules” portion of the parenting program.

Everyone wants to trust their kids, but we’ve found that parents apply a broad set of approaches to this, particularly in online situations. Some parents give their kids complete freedom to do what they please on the Internet and cell phones, some parents don’t allow their kids any access to these modern day communications tools, and many of us struggle along somewhere in the middle, trying to give our kids some freedom to learn how to use these new technologies, but trying to keep an eye on them at the same time.

Here at TxtWatcher we feel that, to be a responsible parent today, you have to accept the fact that kids are growing up more quickly than we did, and develop some new strategies for dealing with this. In the online world in particular, we think there are a few areas to focus on:

• Understand how your kids communicate with one another online
• Develop a strategy to educate your kids (and yourself) on the realities of online communication
• Monitor online dialogues within their network of friends and acquaintances.

While this may seem excessive to some parents, if you want to protect your kids from various life altering decisions and activities, you have to develop a monitoring strategy that allows them to benefit from technology and communication options while enabling you, the parent, to simply “know what is going on.” The treasure trove of information that your kids leave behind in the wake of their online dialogue is possibly the most powerful tool a parent has today. Bottom line: Taking advantage of this tool can make you a much more effective parent in many areas and keep your kids safe. Failure to take advantage of this tool can have dire consequences.

Tell us what you think!

Few dreamed of such awesome technology when I was a kid some 35 plus years ago. Things were simpler and easier then. Video games were in their infancy, and rarely played at home. Kids actually spent more time in outdoor activities such as riding bicycles and playing pick-up games; the primary mode of communication was verbal, actually talking on landline phones. Few, if any, personal computers were in homes and the internet was not yet available to the public. The world has changed. Today’s kids have unprecedented access to technology and information.

While not backed up by clinical research, but rather by observation, I am convinced that kids today engage in activities at 13 and 14 that we engaged in when we were 17. The number of teenage pregnancies and drug-related incidents involving middle-school children are strong indicators of this acceleration. Few would argue that “kids grow up faster today” and that the trend has been going on for decades. However, access to technology and information has compounded what I call the “Acceleration of Adolescence” at a rate that we have not experienced in our lifetimes. As a parent in today’s cyber world it is critical to understand this fact: What you did at 17 many kids today do at 13.

The bottom line is that to be a responsible parent today one must accept that this acceleration exists, understand how your kids communicate with one another, develop a strategy to educate your kids (and yourself) on the realities of online communication, and above all, monitor their online dialogue within their network of friends and acquaintances.

While this may seem excessive to some parents, if you want to protect your kids from various life altering decisions and activities, you have to develop a monitoring strategy that allows them to benefit from technology and communication options while enabling you, the parent, to simply “know what is going on.” The treasure trove of information that your kids leave behind in the wake of their online dialogue is possibly the most powerful tool a parent has today. Bottom line: Taking advantage of this tool can make you a much more effective parent in many areas and keep your kids safe. Failure to take advantage of this tool can have dire consequences.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-09/distracted-teen-driving-texting/54135840/1

http://www.promises.com/articles/teens/teens-texting-addiction/