BOSTON/SYDNEY – A joint study by Harvard University and the University of Sydney has found that cellphone users on average text their one special friend or partner as many as 34 times a day, with researchers attributing the alarmingly high figure to smartphone OCD in women and generalized pussy-whipped disorder in men.
Co-lead researchers Merrill Wentworth and Arjun Dajani said the study of 1,500 respondents aged 18 to 39 found that both men and women tend to focus the majority of their text messages on just one person, with 87 percent saying that person was “most likely” to be the only one they text during their days.
The most-cited reason by female respondents for obsessively texting one partner to the exclusion of other people in their social circle was, “To find out multiple times during the day if he really loved me,” followed by “Just checking in to see if you really love me,” and “To find out whether if, at that moment, if you do not love me, who would you rather be and please do not say it’s that bitch Jessica.”
The top reason male respondents said they concentrated their texting efforts toward their one special connection was “To see if she was up for a dick pic,” followed by “Wanted to talk about my commitment issues with someone I really trust,” and “Do you need me to pick something up on the way home, like your friend Jessica?”
For gay men, the average number of daily texts to their one special partner rose to 84, with the researchers attributing the significantly higher figure to the stronger emotional bond gay men have for each other and because of the tendency for one partner to seek multiple explanations for that one passive-aggressive text the other partner sent at 3 in the morning saying he wanted “to spend the rest of our lives together doing something fun.”
The researchers also discovered that married couples were generally fine with not texting each other at all during the day, and would actually rather not talk at all unless something really urgent came up, like Christmas.
“Although we would like to think the study provides some insights into couples’ pathological texting behaviors and will help people modify their smartphone usage, our fear is that with the increasing sophistication of communication technology, these behaviors are only going to get much, much worse,” the researchers said. “In which case, there is probably no helping us.”