ISSN 0033-2941 Psychological Reports, 2010, 107, 2, 402-404. �� Psychological Reports 2010 DOI 10.2466/17.PR0.107.5.402-404 AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF STUDENTS��� USE OF CELL PHONES, TEXTING, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES1 ALEXA ANGSTER, MICHAEL FRANK, AND DAVID LESTER The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey Summary.���In a sample of 128 undergraduate students, a higher frequency of texting to others was associated with finding the relationships with those others less fulfilling. Similarly, having more social network ���friends��� was associated with finding the relationships with those individuals less fulfilling. Electronic means of communication, such as e-mails, text messaging, and social networking websites, have become very popular in recent years. For example, Raacke and Bonds-Raacke (2008) found that 87% of their sample of college students use social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook. This growth of new devices for communication raises the question of whether relationships using the new modes of communication are as satisfying as face-to-face social interactions. Kraut, Patterson, Lund- mark, Kiesler, Mukopadhyay, and Scherlis (1998) reported that the time spent on the Internet was positively associated with a decline in meaning- ful communication with household family members, fewer people in im- mediate social circles, and an increase in experiences of depression and loneliness, although their later research identified some positive benefits for extraverts (Kraut, Kiesler, Boneva, Cummings, Helgeson, & Crawford, 2002). The results of research on sex differences are inconsistent. Lipscomb, Totten, Cook, and Lesch (2007) reported that men and women do not dif- fer significantly in their use of and opinions about cell phones. Raacke and Bonds-Raacke (2008), however, found that college women were more like- ly than men to set their social networking site pages to private and to log into their accounts fewer times each day. The present study was designed to assess the use of cell phones and the Internet for communication and the effects this has upon relationships. It was predicted that students who send more frequent text messages and engage in more social networking will have less fulfilling personal rela- tionships and be less likely to make personal telephone calls. Method Participants A convenience sample of 128 students (85 women, 43 men: M age = 20.3 1Address enquiries to David Lester, Ph.D., Psychology Program, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Jimmie Leeds Road, Pomona, NJ 08240-1095 or e-mail (lesterd@stockton.edu).

STUDENTS��� SOCIAL NETWORKING 403 yr., SD = 1.4, range 17���23) from a liberal arts college was obtained 67% were Euro-American, 7% African American, 7% Hispanic, 16% Asian, and 3% of other ethnicities. Materials and Procedure Participants were given a 13-question survey that asked about cell phone and Internet use. The first series of questions asked how many text messages or phone calls they sent each day. For those text messages and calls, they were asked to rate on a 4-point scale (Very often, Often, Rare- ly, Very rarely) if these conversations were fulfilling. Participants were also asked how many personal contacts they have programmed into their cell phone, and of those contacts, how many do they actually have regu- lar conversations with or exchange text messages. They were also asked about their text messaging and calling habits with their ���immediate fam- ily.��� The questionnaire also asked participants about their MySpace, Face- book, and other social networking accounts. They were asked the number of ���friends��� they have on these pages and the amount of time they spent talking, texting, and spending time with these friends regularly. Results and Discussion The students estimated that they sent a mean of 112 (SD = 138) text messages per day to their friends and had a mean of 128 (SD = 94) contact numbers in their cell phone. They reported that they used their social net- working sites five times a day (SD = 8) and had a mean of 306 (SD = 255) friends on these networks. Texting Friends The respondents were asked whether they found text conversation fulfilling. The more texts they sent per day, the less fulfilling they found text conversations (Pearson r = ���.31, df = 126, two-tailed p = .001 95%CI = .15, .46). In contrast, there was no association between the number of tele- phone calls to friends per day and how fulfilling these calls were (r = ���.03). Also, the numbers of texts and calls per day were associated (r = .21, p = .02 95%CI = .04, .37). Social Networks The number of friends on social network sites was positively asso- ciated with the frequency of texting and calling friends (rs = .30 and .30, respectively, p = .001) and with the number of social networking friends (r = .32, p .001). Finding social network relationships fulfilling was nega- tively associated with the number of network friends (r = ���.23, p = .01) but not with the number of times they check their social networking site per day (r = ���.13).