Mobile phone comparison website Rightmobilephone.co.uk has been asking teenagers about their texting habits. 19% admitting having previously sent a text message to a 'random' mobile number, while 22% said they'd typed an obscene text message and sent it to someone in their contact list without checking who the recipient was.
42% of the random texters said they sent their SMS messages because they were bored. 31% said it was 'just for fun', 11% said it was due to loneliness and 9% were dared to do so. More than half – 54% – said they'd received a reply.
Neil McHugh, co-founder of Rightmobilephone.co.uk, said "We’d hope young people realise the dangers of texting strange numbers and adding people they don’t know on Facebook, although judging by the findings, this is not the case. As more young people now own mobile phones, I would encourage parents to keep a closer eye on how their children are using them. We were surprised by the number of teenagers that have actually taken part in these risky 'games' like Text Roulette and what was even more worrying is that the majority of the teenagers had a reply from texts they had sent to random numbers."
The survey involved 1,382 young people aged between 13 and 16.