Fifth of under 16s admit to risky random texting

June 3, 2010 - PRLog -- In a new poll of 1,382 teens aged between 13 and 16, www.rightmobilephone.co.uk has found that there is an increasing number of young people engaging in what is potentially a dangerous text messaging trend, involving sending a message to a random number and awaiting a reply.

19% of the respondents who took part in the poll admitting having previously done this, despite the risk of speaking with strangers and 22% claimed to have played ‘text roulette’, a slightly different trend that involves typing an obscene text message before scrolling through the contact list and sending it to whoever it lands on.

Further findings of the study by http://www.rightmobilephone.co.uk included almost two thirds, 64%, of the young respondents admitting to adding or accepting somebody they didn’t know as a friend on Facebook.

Of those who admitted to sending random texts to unknown numbers, 11% said it was ‘loneliness’ that prompted them to do so. 31% said it was ‘just for fun’ whilst 9% were ‘dared’ to do so. 42% said ‘boredom’ was the reason they sent random texts to strangers. More than half, 54%, said they had received a reply from the unknown number they had texted.

In terms of Facebook and those who admitted adding or accepting people they didn’t know, 72% said they just wanted to ‘look more popular’ by having more friends.

Of the teenagers that admitted to playing ‘Text Roulette’, 1 in 3 claimed it had landed them in trouble with the recipient.

Neil McHugh, co-founder of http://www.rightmobilephone.co.uk, said;

“We’d hope young people realise the dangers of texting strange numbers and adding people they don’t know on Facebook, although judging by the findings, this is not the case. As more young people now own mobile phones, I would encourage parents to keep a closer eye on how their children are using them.

“We were surprised by the number of teenagers that have actually taken part in these risky “games” like Text Roulette and what was even more worrying is that the majority of the teenagers had a reply from texts they had sent to random numbers.”

LINK http://www.rightmobilephone.co.uk

ENDS

For more information, or to arrange interviews with Neil McHugh, please contact Shannon Haigh of 10 Yetis PR Agency on 01452 348211 or email shannon@10yetis.co.uk

Editors notes

Rightmobilephone.co.uk was launched in November 2007 to help consumers save time and money by providing a trusted comparison platform for customers to purchase from.

The site has become the UK's most comprehensive and user friendly mobile phone comparison engine, with 600,000+ mobile phone offers combined with user friendly consumer reviews, ratings and video.

Users can review and compare over 800 handsets with images, specifications and video with unique users reviews, opinions and ratings provided by handset owners and compare over 2000 + pay as you go offers and tariffs from all major networks.