The Collegian

Issue date: 11/6/08 Section: Focus

Senior Josh Grabner rubbed his head sheepishly.

He was in the middle of sending a text message when he smacked into a door.

Does Grabner suffer from an embarrassing lack of coordination, or is this a larger issue?

It may be both.

CellSigns, a leading enterprise mobile applications company, provides statistics stating that the number of text messages sent per month in the U.S. has risen from 12 in January 2000 to a staggering 18.66 billion in December 2006.

The increasing role of texting in the American life led nine states last year to consider legislation specifically banning texting at the wheel.

And if these findings are not startling enough, in a BBC article last year, Tim Hutchful of the British Chiropractic Association said that excessive testing can cause "repetitive strain" which may cause both short and long term injuries - a case clinically labeled as "repetitive strain injury."

But sophomore Kaitlin Hoeft feels fine.

"I got my first cell phone in seventh grade. Until the second half of my sophomore year there was not a month that my family was not hit with fines for going over [in text messages]," Hoeft said.

"My plan gave me the highest number you could get - 2,500… I usually sent around 4,000," she added.

Text messaging has become so prevalent among college students it has begun to invade the walls of Hillsdale College classrooms.

Grabner said, "I sent a text in class once in CPE. But it was from behind the safety of my computer."

Grabner said he has seen an individual remonstrated for texting in the classroom.

"[The reprimanded student] did not utilize the safety of the computer effectively," Grabner said.

Hoeft admitted to sending in-class texts, but said she has never been caught, citing her superior texting skills, which afford her the ability to do so, undetected.

"I don't have to look when I text, so I take notes with my right hand and text with my left hand under the table," she said

Senior Scott Rozell remembers a textual exchange during differential calculus sophomore year, which was abruptly terminated with, "Put the d- phone away or get out of my class!"

A shame-faced Rozell sheathed his phone without delay.

"Professor Webster could see me a mile away and apparently, he was not too happy about it," said Rozell, who thought he was being discreet at the time.

"It was really embarrassing," he said. "I never texted in that class again."

Despite the statistical dangers of driving while texting, Hoeft, whose friends have granted the appellative, "text-star," has managed to remain safe while texting.

"I must have had about 60 close calls," Hoeft said. "It's bad."

Senior Abigail Klarr was not so lucky. She was involved in a text-induced car accident this June.

"I was reading a text and didn't look up in time to see the cars stopped in front of me," she said.

Klarr did not have enough time to hit her brakes. She estimates hitting the car at 20 miles per hour, which in turn crunched into the car following.

"I was really lucky," she said. "It could have been so much worse," she said, listing alternative endings to her "glorified fender-bender."

"I definitely learned a valuable lesson - I am a lot more careful now," she said.

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