Teens say this habit is the most annoying thing someone can do in a relationship
About 35% of teenagers have been or are in romantic relationships – that’s a pretty big chunk of our under-18 population. Pew Research Center recently surveyed teens about their love lives and how the Internet, social media, and phones impact their relationships, and the results are pretty interesting.
Back in “my” day, we used AOL Instant Messenger more than texting, because cell phone companies charged something like 12¢ a text. Nowadays, teens can be in touch as much as they want. Sometimes, like when you have a mutual crush on someone, I bet that can be so much fun. Liking their Instagrams and sending them Snaps from math class sounds like a modern-day Romeo and Juliet (without the last act of course).
But teens reported that there is definitely a limit on how much they like being contacted by their boyfriends, girlfriends, and exes. The survey shows that the most common way to annoy a romantic partner is to get in touch too frequently in a short amount of time. This mostly alludes to binge-texting, though the study doesn’t clarify if the texting is malicious or not. I’m guessing the subjects of an “annoying” tidal wave of texts could vary: I have very specific memories of thinking I’d leave a few cute AOL messages for a crush while he had an away message up, and a “hey, miss you,” quickly turned into a conversation with myself. Yikes.
About 36% of the teens surveyed admitted to over-texting a romantic partner or ex, but 8% reported that they have sent embarrassing photos of their partner or ex to someone else. One out of ten said they’d modified or deleted their ex’s or partner’s social media accounts, but, again, that act can range in hurtfulness. Changing your girlfriend’s birthday on Facebook to today so she gets an overload of loving posts from her friends isn’t the same as, say, tweeting a bunch of inappropriate things from a partner or ex’s Twitter.
Though the Pew Research Center didn’t include these questions on their survey about adult romantic relationships, this does serve as a good reminder to text your crush like each message costs 12¢.
(Images via giphy, iStock)
