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Such support is more important than ever. According to the American College Health Association, nearly 40 percent of college students surveyed in spring 2017 reported feeling so depressed that they found it difficult to function at least once during the previous year.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of students have trouble transitioning to college, and rates of mental health problems are increasing,\u201d Ruppel said. \u201cWe thought parent-child relationships might be important in this transition, so we looked at how students might turn to their parents for support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruppel and Tricia Burke of Texas State University examined the communication habits and social competence of 155 first-semester college freshmen. They tracked students\u2019 self-reported stress and loneliness, as well as the number of phone calls or text messages between students and their parents. They discovered that students who felt a lot of stress one day tended to exchange a flurry of text messages with their parents the next day. Then, the day after that, students\u2019 stress levels fell.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore stress leads to more texting,\u201d Ruppel says, \u201cbut more texting leads to less stress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Help for vulnerable students<\/h3>\n
The finding was especially true for students who struggle with face-to-face communication, as well as making and maintaining friendships. So texting may be a particularly effective way to support more vulnerable college students.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople with low social competence tend to be the ones who struggle more in the transition to college,\u201d Ruppel said. She notes that previous research shows they are more susceptible to loneliness, depression and stress.<\/p>\n
Ruppel\u2019s research didn\u2019t dig into the specific content of text messages between students and parents, but the researchers did learn something surprising. \u201cMost of the time,\u201d Ruppel said, \u201cstudents didn\u2019t talk to their parents about what was bothering them.\u201d Yet they felt better anyway. Additional research is necessary, Ruppel said, to examine the content and frequency of text messaging between parents and college students over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cPopular opinion says that technology is bad for relationships,\u201d Ruppel said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to figure out when it helps, why and for whom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The secret to helping your children cope with the pressures of college \u2013 without crippling their growth and development \u2013 could be tucked in your pocket. Research by Erin Ruppel suggests that exchanging text messages can provide support during their early college days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40008,"featured_media":61621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[174,175],"tags":[],"section":[135],"display_categories":[115,116],"related-coverage":[],"uwmnews-feed":[167,158,160],"class_list":["post-61620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-research","section-health","display_categories-top-story-secondary","display_categories-top-story-section","uwmnews-feed-alumni-association","uwmnews-feed-letters-science","uwmnews-feed-social-science"],"yoast_head":"\n