Teen girls text more, become more self-centered when in a bad mood, study shows

A study from the University of Oregon showed that teenage girls increase their volume of texting when they are having a bad day, with a heightened focus on talking about themselves, according to KEZI.

Researchers reportedly spent months focusing on the habits of 30 young girls ages 11-15, sifting through over 22,000 messages the girls had sent through text messaging and social media.

The girls' phone use was compared to their moods each day, and researchers found a connection between the teens' moods and increased amount of phone usage, mostly to talk about themselves.

“So ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my,’ words like that,” said Elisabeth McNeilly, a research team member and University of Oregon doctoral candidate. “Which, the literature suggests, is a reflection of self-focused attention. So being more self-focused in their language, and that correlated with days that they were having lower mood.”

The worse day a teen was having, the more words she would use and the more messages she would send, the research showed.

“One of the methods that we're very interested in is the fact that adolescents and teenagers spend so much time on their smartphones,” said Dr. Nick Allen, a psychology professor at the university and member of the research team. “They’re putting a lot of information into those phones that are very important for their social lives and well-being.”

The doctor said that the research team was able to connect the use of first-person pronouns with having a worse mood and stated that focusing on the present appeared to be related to a poor mood.

"I think it's fascinating, some of the patterns of language that were associated with these mood states,” Allen said. “Because what they suggest is there's this state of being very focused on myself and being very focused on the here and now that tends to be related to not feeling good."

The researcher team plans on replicating the study with teenage boys.

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