Cell Phone Use and Child and Adolescent Reading Proficiency

This study examined the association between cell phone use, including minutes spent talking and number of text messages sent, and two measures of children's reading proficiency - tests of word decoding and reading comprehension - in the United States. Data were drawn from the Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a nationally representative survey of 1,147 children 10-18 in 2009. Children whose parents were better educated, who had higher family incomes, who had fewer siblings, and who lived in urban areas were more likely to own or share a cell phone. Among those with access to a phone, children who spent more time talking on the phone were less proficient at word decoding, whereas children who spent more time sending text messages had greater reading comprehension. Although girls spent more time texting than did boys, there were no gender differences in the association between time spent talking or number of text messages sent with achievement. In spite of racial/ethnic differences in cell phone use levels, there were no racial/ethnic differences in the association between cell phone use and reading proficiency.