As any parent will gladly complain about on any given day, teens are spending less and less time with each other outside of school. In the past, the end of the school day marked the beginning of the time to play and hang out with your friends. Now, that play time and hanging out time has been changed into "live chilling" time.
"Live chilling" is the newest way for teens to spend time with one another and it is all thanks to apps like Kik, Houseparty, and Fam. All of these apps allow people to video chat with another person.
In some cases, like with Houseparty, users can actually video chat with up to seven friends at the same time. So, rather than having to coordinate with a group and deciding where to meet, each person can video chat from wherever they are at the moment.
The Pew Research Center recently found that one in three teens say the hang out with their friends outside of school less often than "every few days." Ted Livingston, the founder and chief executive of Kik, says that is the case because "they’re hanging out with their friends on their phone.”
Teens use the video chatting apps for hours at a time. Understand, they may not necessarily sit there with their face right in front of the screen. Instead, the app is often left open in the background as a way to communicate, with occasional "face to face" interaction.
Jan Odiaga is an assistant professor at Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago who studies how technology influences activity levels in young people. She believes that teens have turned to "live chilling" as an adaptation to the world they live in, and the busy lives they maintain.
Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal