(5 September 2005 2:00 pm)

MUMBAI: One half of 1000 teens in the US are more glued to their mobile phones than television. This is part of the findings thrown up by a survey conducted by the US research firm Itracks.

The online survey, conducted for ACE*COMM, polled teens across North America between the ages of 13 and 18 from 30 July to 9 August 2005. The survey also revealed that on average, teens spend almost as much time on their mobile phones as they spend doing physical activity.

The survey has also found that mobile phone abuse is rampant among the teens. More than one-third (38 per cent) of teens surveyed use their mobile phones to SMS their friends during school, 30 per cent play video games on their phones while in school, and more than one-quarter (26 per cent) use their phones to talk to people their parents would not approve of.

ACE*COMM is the US-based global provider of advanced operations support systems (OSS) solutions for telecom service providers and enterprises.