Follow up to previous postings on texting: “Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, surveyed 800 pairs of teens and parents, and organized focus groups with children in four different cities. During the focus groups, she says she was amazed to discover the teens were secretly texting under the tables as they talked with researchers. When researchers asked if teens ever turned their phones off, the majority looked at the interviewers in “horror,” says Lenhart. She says the kids said they might put their phone on silent or vibrate — but off? Highly unlikely. “They would never actually want to cut themselves off from that network of communication that the phone represented,” says Lenhart, who adds that the teens even slept with their phones. Lenhart talked to 74 teenagers in nine different focus groups in four cities nationwide. Many said they kept the phone under their pillow so it was quieter during the night. But others said they kept it under the pillow so they would hear or feel it, and be able to answer or text in the middle of the night. On average, she says, the teens reported texting about 50 times a day. About one-third of them said they sent 100 texts a day. And 15 percent reported sending more than 200 texts a day. One in 4, or 26 percent, admitted texting while driving.”