'I send 260 texts a day'
By LANE NICHOLS - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 17 December 2008TEXT MESSAGE JUNKIE: Hannah Brooke, right, finances her 6000-text-a-month habit with pocket money.
With three phones and 6000 "free" monthly text messages, you'd think Hannah Brooke, 16, would be well sorted.
But the self-confessed text messaging junkie - who admits sending 260 texts a day - regularly runs out and has to borrow a friend's phone to satisfy her insatiable four-hour-a-day obsession.
"I have three phones and I run out of texts all the time. It's just like all day."
Hannah - one of nearly one-in-three teenagers who spend more than three hours a day texting according to the Youth07 report - said she mostly sent texts to reveal breaking news or arrange meeting friends.
"Just everyday things - `What are you up to? Where are you? What's up?' Just normal stuff."
The Wellington High School pupil's 6000 "free" monthly texts cost $30, financed through pocket money.
"If you have nothing to do you usually text more. I guess I just text for the sake of it."
Friend Sasha Barrett, 15, estimated she sent between 4000 and 6000 text messages a month.
"I text like non-stop from when I wake up to when I sleep."
Though happy "most of the time", Sasha was not surprised by the report's findings that one-in-four teenage girls had harmed themselves and one in five considered suicide in the last year.
"People aren't so close to their families any more so they end up doing stupid stuff - getting into drugs, staying out all night and just getting into trouble."
Hannah Brooke's top two texts:
"Whats up dawg"
"Wea u at"
TEENAGE ANGST IN 2007
* A third of surveyed teens reported binge drinking at least once in the four weeks leading up to the survey.*
* One in five received nasty or threatening messages by cellphone or Internet and 13 per cent were sent unwanted sexual material.
* 41 per cent of pupils were hit or physically harmed in the past year.
* 92 per cent felt okay or very happy about their lives compared with 86 per cent in 2001.
* Fewer teens reported significant depressive symptoms (10.6 per cent in 2007, down from 12.4 per cent in 2001).
* Fewer pupils attempted suicide in the past 12 months (4.7 per cent in 2007, down from 7.8 per cent in 2001).
* A third had never had sexual intercourse.
* One in five Maori pupils did not feel safe in their neighbourhood and one in 10 worried frequently about not having enough food.
* Only one in five teens ate the recommended daily intake of fruit and veges. Nearly a third consumed four or more fizzy drinks in the past week.
* One in five females and one in 20 males said they had experienced sexual abuse.
* 35 per cent of teens watched more than three hours of TV a day and 28 per cent spent more than three hours texting.
* More than half of surveyed pupils spent more than an hour online each day.
* 10 per cent of teens painted graffiti in the past year and 10 per cent were in trouble with police.
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