Texting the Summer Away With Your Teen

It's summertime! School's out and teens are spending their days swimming, hanging out with friends and working at summer jobs. No longer spending much of their days at school, teens are harder to keep up with, making a cell phone vital for both parents and teens. Not just for talking, but for typing and sending text messages to stay in touch.

Close to half (45 percent) of today's teens own a cell phone, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, and mobile messaging is an important part of their daily lives. In fact, a whopping 68 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 are sending text messages from their cell phones.

Today's teens use mobile messaging to say hello, catch up with friends, check in with mom and dad, and more. At the forefront of this mobile communications boom, these trends-setters use mobile messaging to communicate anytime, anywhere with friends, parents, classmates and teammates.

To keep in step with your teen on mobile messaging, the following tips and tricks can help you to get started. In no time, you'll be using mobile messaging with your teen or enhancing your mobile messaging experience whether typing to your teen, your spouse or a colleague.

Establish Rules: Just as you do with regular cell phone activity, it is important that you establish messaging guidelines with your teens. Topics for discussion include who they can exchange messages with and how many messages they can send without incurring overages on your wireless data plan.

Be Courteous: Reply to text messages you receive in a timely manner and be sure you're texting the right person in your phone book. AOL's T9 Texting Outlook Survey found that 69 percent of moms using mobile messaging are in favor of good mobile etiquette.

Don't Shout: Typing a mobile message in all capital letters will appear as though you are shouting at the recipient, and should be avoided, unless you mean to shout at your teen!

Get Smart: To stay on top of the shorthand and mobile messaging lingo your teens may be using, such as CU L8R (see you later) and GR8 (great), check out the "Lingo Dictionary," a resource for free download at http://www.textfast.t9.com/dictionary.htm.

Express Yourself: Emoticons, such as smileys, can help people sending mobile messages better share their feelings. Use :) to say you're happy, or :( to say you're not.

Pace Yourself: Your wireless carrier will charge you and your family members fees for handling both incoming and outgoing mobile messages. Consult your wireless service contract to learn more about these fees. Given the increasing popularity of mobile messaging, many carriers now also offer volume messaging plans with affordable bulk pricing options.

AOL is enabling parents and teens to communicate while mobile with the mobile AIM service that can be configured to automatically forward instant messages from AIM users' friends, family and associates to their cell phones after they have signed off of the AIM service. User's can activate the mobile AIM service and set their IM forwarding preferences by going to www.aolmobile.com

Courtesy of ARA Content