Validation of a Novel Delay Discounting of Text Messaging Questionnaire

Abstract

Using cellular phones for text messaging has become a ubiquitous mode of communication in today’s American culture. Text messaging has become a primary source of relationship development and maintenance for many Americans, especially youth. Researchers have begun classifying excessive reliance on text messaging as an addictive behavior, which may lead to risky activities such as texting while driving. This study interprets texting dependence within a behavioral economics framework of addictive behavior and proposes a novel Delay Discounting of Texting Questionnaire (DDTQ). The DDTQ involves a hypothetical scenario wherein the respondent chooses between paying for an immediate text now and waiting to receive a free text message in the future. We validated the DDTQ using a relatively diverse crowdsourced sample from Amazon Mechanical Turk. The DDTQ demonstrated expected degrees of systematic discounting and yielded higher rates of delay discounting with reward values in a within-subjects evaluation of the magnitude effect. Finally, the DDTQ successfully discriminated different profiles of possible text-messaging dependence. Collectively, these findings suggest the DDTQ is a viable task for use in studying the behavioral economics of possible text-messaging dependence.