The Relationship between Text Messaging by Cell Phone and Interpersonal Consciousness of Adolescence

Abstract

This study examined the current usage status of text messaging by cell phone in adolescents and their relationship between texting and interpersonal consciousness. High school and undergraduate students (n = 819; average age 17.8 years; 366 male and 453 female) completed a questionnaire assessing the frequency of sending text messages, the degree of cell phone dependency, and four kinds of attitude scales for measuring interpersonal consciousness: the scales for the consciousness of others (Tsuji,1989), emotional empathy (Kato & Takagi, 1980), contextualism (Kakimoto, 1995), and groupism (Yamaguchi et al., 1995). Results indicated that students exchanged text messages among a relatively small group of people and female students were more cell-phone dependent than male students. Moreover, the index of dependency was associated with some of the scores of the attitude scales. These results suggest that the dependency of adolescents on cell phones is related to their attitudes seeking for positive interpersonal relationships and strong affective ties with others