You might be shocked to hear Killian Fane sent nearly 7,000 text messages in one month.  But she says that's average, with many of her middle school friends zipping off at least 10,000.  Fane explains, “I have to say I was an addict."

But if you want to keep up with the crowd, 12-year-old Fane says texting and Facebook are a must.  She says, “Gossip is pretty much the key thing to not being invisible."

Killan was a straight "A" student, before her heavy messaging.  But with every text and message on Facebook, her grades slipped.  She even started making grammatical errors on school work, writing the letters "U" and “R" instead of you are.  Fane says, "I really didn't do any school work at home because I'd always be on Facebook or complaining how tired I was or texting."

A Kaiser Family Foundation study shows kids like Killian spend an average of nearly 7.5 hours a day dealing with media – which includes texting or social networking sites.  Nearly half of those children suffer fair or poor grades.  But Dr. Tim Doran of GBMC says it's not just grades that suffer.  He explains, "There are impacts on health, impacts on their health in terms of being sedentary when they’re older.  There are impacts on the amount of aggression and violence they’re exposed to and that carrying over in their own personal habits.  There are a lot of detrimental effects from overexposure to media."

Doran reminds parents that texting and social networking have taken the place of those long phone conversations we used to have with our friends.  And while it may seem unfair at first, he believes screen time – whether on the TV, computer or cell phone, should be limited.  He says, “Parenting is about being the bad guy.  But it's not really about being the bad guy because in my experience when people have set limits and set  controls, the adolescents are actually pleased because it's really overtaking them in a way that is not good and at some level they know is not good.  So to be the bad guy is really to be the good guy in this situation.”

Between Killian's grades and that infamous bill with nearly 7,000 texts, the Fane’s decided to take away her phone and Facebook access.  And several days into her grounding, Killian started to focus on her school work again and her family.  She says, “Before this I really didn't know my brothers or sisters ages or what they like to do and now I like to hang out with them."

Once all of Killian's grades are back up, her parents say she will be able to text and spend time surfing the social network.  But only after her homework is done and before the lights go out.

Source: ABC2 News - http://tinyurl.com/ybjt557