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Now think about this.  You know how we're all doing away with punctuation o n our texts?  Well, a new study says that that very thing is what now stands in for the visual cues we used to get in face-to-face conversation. ‘Textisms’ convey meaning in absence of spoken conversation, says newswise.com. Emoticons, irregular spellings and exclamation points in text messages aren’t sloppy or a sign that written language is going down the tubes  — these “textisms” help convey meaning and intent in the absence of spoken conversation, according to newly published research from Binghamton University, State University of New York. “In contrast with face-to-face conversation, texters can’t rely on extra-linguistic cues such as tone of voice and pauses, or non-linguistic cues such as facial expressions and hand gestures,” says Binghamton University Professor of Psychology Celia Klin. “In a spoken conversation, the cues aren’t simply add-ons to our words; they convey criti...

I know it should come as no surprise.  But teens who text at night do not do as well in school as those who don't. A new study has shown that teens who text at night pay a price in both their sleep (okay, so we knew that) but also, wait for it, their academic performance, too. Now that's a little scary. The study is the first of its kind to link nighttime instant messaging habits of American teenagers to sleep health and school performance, according to newswise.com. “We need to be aware that teenagers are using electronic devices excessively and have a unique physiology,” says study author Xue Ming, professor of neuroscience and neurology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “They tend to go to sleep late and get up late. When we go against that natural rhythm, students become less efficient.”  Think about it.  I've been getting up before dawn (4:45 yesterday and 3:30 today, though the garbage men woke me anyway) to finish a project with a tight deadli...

So everyone thought all we had to do to make driving while talking on a cell phone safer was to remove our hands.  Big joke. It's our minds that we have to remove when we're doing that.  I always wondered why the big deal about hands-free cell phones when it's the talking that's distracting, not the damn holding of the phone.  And it appears it's not limited to calls, but sending texts with Apple Siri or Google Now smart phone personal assistants.  Even just speaking into your phone to give a command slices our attention in half. Now a study has finally found that it takes up to 27 seconds to regain full attention after issuing voice commands, according to newswise.com.  University of Utah researchers discovered this in a pair of new studies for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. I mean, it makes sense.  When I'm talking to someone -- whether in person or on a cell -- I'm totally in the conversation.  I don't notice if a car is about to si...

So it's our fault.  Did you know that teens talking on their cells while driving are most likely talking to. . . us? A new study claims that parents are part of the problem.  Now, I have a few more years to go before my son starts driving.  And if his current behavior is any predictor, I won't have to worry.  He hates talking on the phone.  Especially to me.  (We won't get into "Whose voice is that??!" the one time he did pick up the phone.) But the study found that more than half of teens talking on cellphones while driving were conversing with their mother or father.  And guess what?  They watch us do it, too. Researchers interviewed or surveyed more than 400 teen drivers, ages 15 to 18, from 31 states to find out why they continue to talk and text behind the wheel, despite warnings about the serious hazards of distracted driving, according to newswise.com. “Teens said parents expect to be able to reach them, that parents get mad if...

Are you in pain ? What if your doctor could make it better, over the phone?  It's a new way of easing chronic pain and it's done over your smart phone. According to sciencedaily.com, mobile phones  can track patients from a distance and monitor pain, mood, physical activity, drug side effects, and treatment compliance. The Web site quotes Robert Jamison, PhD, professor of anesthesia and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and pain psychologist with Brigham and Women's Hospital, who says that smartphone apps are helping the shrinking ranks of pain specialists treat and monitor rapidly increasing populations of chronic pain sufferers. "Today the ratio is one pain specialist for every 10,000 patients, but mobile technology allows for easy time-effective coverage of patients at a low cost, offering significant opportunities to improve access to health care, contain costs, and improve clinical outcomes," Jamison explains. OK, so it's not a magic pill.   ...

So what are we doing to reduce the hours our kids watch TV?  Not much, it turns out. A new poll  has found that a bout 25 percent of parents who have children aged two to five say their children get three or more hours of entertainment screen time a day, well beyond recommended limits, according to newswise.com. The news isn't all bad:  a little more than half of those parents do try to set some limits by location: banning media devices from places like the bedroom or at mealtime. Here's what the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) had to say about TV and kids: "T he AAP discourages any screen time for children less than two years of age. For older children, the AAP recommends no more than two hours daily. The AAP suggests keeping media devices out of children’s bedrooms, keeping family routines like mealtime screen-free, and setting screen-free days for the whole family." I've flunked about all of those.  My son, who'd much rather spend time on th...

Hey.  Did you know, texting can be good for you? After all the stuff about how the Internet could feed a drug habit, or make us drive off the road and kill someone (actually, I'm not kidding about that) or gain weight or lose our sex drive (made those last two up!), how refreshing to finally find something good it does. True, it's not like curing cancer or stamping out hepatitis C, but it's helping diabetics take better care of themselves. It might also decrease the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes -- you know, the one we get for eating too much, as one out of three does? "An overwhelming majority of surveyed people who enrolled in customized texting service txt4health piloted in Detroit and Cincinnati last year said the free mobile education program made them more aware of their diabetes risk and more likely to make diet-related behavior changes and lose weight," newswise.com reports.  Sadly, though, well less than half made it through the whole 14-w...

Which side are you on?   Texting at the table or not?  Taking a call while eating dinner or should that be forbidden?  According to a recent study, 84 percent of Americans say both are a no-no, and 87 percent say never, with guests.  Yet, why do we still see so many people doing it? Out to dinner not long ago, we sat near a couple, so intent on their smartphones, they only spoke to the waiter, telling him what they wanted.  Sherry Turkle writes today at The New York Times that we are so busy documenting our lives, with our selfies and blogs and Facebook posts about everything we do from brushing our teeth to listening to certain songs to what we ate for dinner (who cares?), that we don't live.   Turkle says we just don't talk any more.  " We interrupt conversations for documentation all the time," she writes. Or worse, observe.  Reflect.  Think. "A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark the moment. In this, it sh...