They're texting. They're instant-messaging. They're texting while instant-messaging.

As any mom who's found herself driving a car full of cell phone-tapping tweens or friending her firstborn on Facebook knows, today's kids have more ways to stay connected than ever before. And, boy, are they using them. According to industry research, 61 percent of virtual-world visitors are between 3 and 11, and 22 percent of kids ages 6 to 9 already have their own cell phone. In a study in the journal Pediatrics, 58 percent of kids 10 to 15 listed a form of communication as the major reason to go online. These are things that make moms go Hmmm. We all realize that this generation is going to have to be tech-savvy to be successful. But between social networking, interactive gaming, web communities, IMing, and everything -- especially texting -- that comes with cell phones, it feels like our kids are spending an awful lot of time engaging others through a screen at exactly the same time as they're supposed to be learning to form and maintain relationships.

Should we worry? It's hard to tell. Scientists are just starting to study the social effects of these new types of communication, and much of their research focuses on adults and teens, not kids. By poking through those studies, though, it is possible to glean a few likely answers -- and, it turns out, there's much to be hopeful about.

The Safety Factor

When kids started venturing online in the mid-to-late '90s, many parents worried about how they'd interact with strangers -- especially the big, bad adults said to be lurking around every cyber-corner. But two significant reports this year confirmed what most screen-monitoring moms have come to realize: By and large, kids now spend the majority of their online time with the same people they know in real life -- friends from activities, church, and school.

It's only natural: Between the ages of 8 and 13, kids are developing key relationship and communication skills, and typically want to spend as much time as they can with peers. Technology just gives them new ways to do that. Texting, in particular, seems tailor-made for the tween psyche. Not only does it allow users to perma-connect with their social group, it also gives them all sorts of new ways to either include others (by sharing peeks at the screen or using slang) or exclude them (by typing silently while next to Mom on the couch).

Not surprisingly, kids love it. Nielsen Mobile, which tracks consumer phone habits, found that the average cell phone customer sent and received about 1.5 texts for every call, while subscribers under age 12 exchanged 3 texts per call. (Of course, older kids have both beat: Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 were seven times more likely to tap.)

Texting, IMing, e-mailing -- anything, in fact, that's not immediate and face-to-face -- has a bonus, notes Nathan Freier, Ph.D., a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who studies how people interact with technology: It allows a buffer against awkwardness during what's already an awkward (and emotionally freighted) age.

"The more richly you engage someone, the more potential there is for embarrassment," he says. "Short text messages relieve kids of that anxiety." There are dangers, of course, in telling a girl you like her via text message -- notably, that she'll forward your note to the whole school. But for tweens, this pales next to the sinking feeling of having to watch her face as she decides how to reject you.

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