If 16-year-old Sydney Harris remembers that something in the clothes dryer needs to be removed, she will send a quick text message to her mother in another part of the house.

Same goes for a breakfast request by the high school junior as she is getting ready in the morning for classes in Carl Junction. Or if she wants to tell her brother, Christian, to turn down his music in his nearby bedroom.

“It may be laziness,” she acknowledged with a laugh. “But it’s handy if I’m in a rush. It’s time management. It’s just so much easier.”

Harris, who has used a cellphone since seventh grade, is one of the teens the Pew Research Center refers to as “typical” in research findings released earlier this spring: She is one of the 75 percent who now use texting as one of their primary forms of communication.

It hasn’t always been that way for Harris. When she first got her cellphone in middle school, she used it as a telephone.

“I called my parents if I needed ride after cheerleading practice, things like that,” she said. “I didn’t text then at all.”

Now, she sends “probably 150 to 200” texts per day — and yes, she has what’s called an “unlimited plan.” (She noted, however, that even a one-letter reply, such as the oft-used “’K” to indicate “OK,” counts as one text.)

Harris’ behavior is not unusual. The number of texts that teens are sending has hit an all-time high across the nation. In 2011, the median number of texts sent on a typical day by teens ages 12 to 17 rose to 60. Much of the increase was among those ages 14 to 17, who went from a median of 60 texts a day in 2009 to a median of 100 two years later.

And, older girls like Harris remain the most enthusiastic texters, with a median of 100 texts a day last year, compared with 50 for boys the same age.

Harris said that for teens today, it’s “mostly about time management.”

“Most of the time, I’m busy, and so if I’m in the middle of doing something and don’t want to take time to stop, call, have a conversation, it’s just easier to send a quick message and wait for them to respond when they can,” she said.

“It’s a privacy thing, too,” she said, referring to awkward times when teens might not want to have an oral conversation, particularly about sensitive subjects, in earshot of others — especially adults.

“It’s just handy; we’re not being anti-social,” she said. “It’s a convenience. Adults think we don’t talk in person at all, but that’s not true. It truly is nothing to worry about.”

Madison Lewis, 16, a student at St. Mary’s-Colgan High School in Pittsburg, Kan., agrees.

“To text them, it’s easier,” said Lewis, who said she is more outgoing than her twin sister. “I don’t always like to talk on the phone a lot; texting is faster and easier. I might ask them if it is a ‘blue day’ or ‘white day’ at school, or ask them where practice is, and just need a one- or two-word answer.”

After school, she texts friends “just to see what’s up, or if they want to hang out.”

Her sister, McKenzie, who described herself as more shy and less apt to talk, said she also texts less often — maybe 50 texts a day — and “would rather hear a voice” if she has to communicate with someone.



Less talking

“Hearing voices” is something teens are doing significantly less these days. Perhaps of most concern to adults weighing in on the research findings is that the number of teens texting people in their everyday lives far surpasses their frequency of using any other form of communication.

Sixty-three percent use text messaging. Other figures: 39 percent call using their cellphones; 35 percent use face-to-face socializing outside school; 29 percent use social network site messaging; 22 percent use instant messaging; 19 percent use land lines; and 6 percent use email.

Harris’ father, Eric Harris, is among those concerned — not so much as a parent, but as a university professor who studies personality issues pertaining to consumer and employee behavior.

“My entire class on consumer behavior — society, culture — is about how we act and what we do today,” he said. “I view the cellphone as a product we use and consume. It’s all about how we use it and why we use it that really affects all of society.”

Eric Harris, chairman of the managing and marketing department in the Kelce School of Business at Pittsburg State University, published a textbook, “CB — Consumer Behavior,” now in its fifth edition, that focuses on just that.

Recent updates include information related to texting — including sexting, texting while driving and cyberbullying.

“Just this morning, I was teaching this very topic in my class,” he said last week. “Stats show that kids continue to text more and more, and they’re speaking less and less, with their friends, especially.”

During the discussion, in fact, students were texting.

“They call it the Always Connected Generation,” Eric Harris said. “But it really depends on how you define what connected means, and if connection means being connected through texting and social media. If it means speaking with others, they may not be as connected as we think.”

He worries that such statistics point to the dehumanization of communication, and that teens might not see a problem with that.

“They might not see the value of talking anymore,” he said. “My concern with this is the value of face-to-face conversation or oral conversation through the telephone is not as valuable as it once was. I hear stories of kids breaking up with each other through texts. It makes you wonder what it’s going to be like when the kids get a little older.”

But in the Harris family, despite texting, an effort is made to have conversation.

“Whenever we can, we eat supper around the table,” Eric Harris said. “We’ve always tried to have traditional family dinners and those things. I feel closer to my kids than I think we were with our parents.”

In a twist of irony, he said, technology has helped with that closeness.

“All the research on this generation shows they are closer to their parents than most generations before them, and that’s largely because of the technology,” he said. “They always have a cellphone, always can be in touch. A mother texted her son in my class while I was discussing this exact thing, and he laughed.”

While texting does allow families to stay connected, it also perpetuates the capacity to be an “umbrella” or “helicopter” parent, he said.

“There are people who are always in touch with their kids, to the point of it being too much,” he said.



Adults, too

Adults, it turns out, are texting too. But their reactions to daily use of it are mixed.

Pittsburg resident Deborah McGeorge said she much prefers texting to phone calls for most things, because she never has been “much of a phone talker.”

She and her husband use text messages to figure out their daily lunch together or send a message of love during the workday without interrupting a meeting or task.

“I text every day and make or receive phone calls only a couple of times a week,” McGeorge said. “I find I keep in touch more often with friends and family who text than with those who don’t because it’s so quick and easy to send a little note or even a joke. But you have to block out time for a phone call, and then hope the person you are calling is available to talk.”

Business owner Lori Horton, on the other hand, said she prefers a phone call.

“If it’s short, I’ll text, but usually it’s quicker and easier to just call and complete a conversation all at once,” she said. “Nothing annoys me as much as a text that just says ‘K.’”



Study

A CASE STUDY that Eric Harris, a professor at Pittsburg State University, wrote last week for the next edition of his textbook revealed that last year, smartphones outsold all other forms of computing combined — desktops, netbooks and laptops — for the first time.