(AP) -- ATLANTA (AP) - There's a provocative new study that suggests that teens who text 120 times a day or more, are more likely to have had sex or used alcohol and drugs than kids who don't send as many messages.
The study's authors say they're not suggesting that "hyper-texting" leads to risky behavior, but say it's startling to see the apparent link.
Dr. Scott Frank, the study's lead author, says that instead, the study concludes that a significant number of teens are very susceptible to peer pressure and also have permissive or absent parents.
Frank, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, says if parents aren't monitoring their children's texting, they're probably not monitoring other activities.
Hyper-texting and hyper-networking were more common among girls, minorities, kids whose parents have less education and students from a single-mother household.
More than 4,200 students at 20 public high schools in the Cleveland area were surveyed last year.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
