By Cassey Graeff-
Students at Penn Manor High School are enjoying the trend of texting over calling.
More than 70 percent of cell phone users send and receive text messages, according to cellphones.org. Texting is not such a good thing at times, which multiple students at Penn Manor have discovered.
“I feel like an idiot when I text, they don’t get to get to know me for who I actually am,” said Karly Wiest a senior at Penn Manor High School.
“My parents read my texts and I got grounded for a week,” said senior Maddy Hess.
“People have threatened me (over text) and my mom has yelled at me,” said sophomore Erica Williams.
Even though students have gotten in trouble for texting, the number of texts sent has not been reduced. Of 18-29 year olds, 95 percent text message. When a short poll was taken 49 out of 50 high school students have unlimited texting and use it.
“Yes, I text a lot,” said Alex Lombardo a junior at Penn Manor.
“I have unlimited texting, and I text about everyday,” said Alyssa Jahnke.
The use of alter-egos was a varied experience depending on the student.
An alter ego is texting as someone other than the actual texter. Having an alter ego over text may consist of saying things that you will not follow through with. The reason some teens do this is to attract the attention of someone else or to gain a new sense of confidence by becoming someone else.
“I was Tim from Mops and Stuff,” said Hess.
“Well I won’t go into great detail but yes, with boys,” said Wiest about using an alter ego.
Lombardo had quite a different response, “Well it’s different talking over text, but I try and be myself as much as I can. You can’t hear emotion so it’s hard to be sarcastic.”
Lombardo agreed with many other students that the best form of communication is face-to-face talking.
“Talking face to face you can really sense how somebody feels based on their body language,” said Williams.
Hess believes texting and talking on the phone is a waste of time, and she would much rather talk face to face with a friend.
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