Quotes of the Day

It wasn't so long ago when a boy who liked a girl had two choices. He could bowl up to her at school and try to talk with her, eventually asking her out. Or he could attempt the even more daring move of calling her at home. This carried the dual risks of speaking to one of her parents and, worse, when he identified himself to the girl, hearing a confused and faintly irritated, "Who?"

That's not how it works now. In the cities of Australia, a typical scenario sees a group of teenage boys approach a group of girls at the beach. After some desultory conversation, the boys suggest an exchange of mobile-phone numbers. It's rare for a girl to say no, even if she doesn't like a guy. Better to give a fake number than make a scene. "I just kind of give it to anybody. I don't really think about it," says 15-year-old Kathleen. The boy's first text message might arrive the same night. And then the fun begins.

What kind of fun? A kind that may alarm parents who bought their child a mobile for the best of reasons—for use in emergencies large and small, for their own peace of mind. When the world's first text message was sent in 1993, no one foresaw that in just over a decade, the laborious act of texting would become a principal means of communication between teens, or that it would transform the rules and rituals of adolescent courtship. Unlike talking on the phone, texting provides an emotional screen that hides shyness and awkwardness; it also buys time for the less acute to compose seemingly effortless repartee. "It's emboldened teenagers," says Australian Research Council fellow Gerard Goggin, who's just finished a book about the cultural impact of mobile phones.

A covert means of flirtation and erotic communication, texting is rocket fuel for teen romance. Its consequences have outpaced local academic inquiry, though a recent study at the University of Oslo, in Norway, found a link between teenagers' mobile-phone activity and the timing of their first sexual experience. Says one 15-year-old boy, who identified himself as "Tank" when Time found him texting at a Sydney railway station: "If you're not sending 10 texts a day—minimum—you're not in the game."

The proportion of high-school students who own a mobile phone is 90% and rising, according to the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association. Partly because it's cheaper and partly for the reasons mentioned, texting rather than calling is the preference of most teens, who punched out more than half of the 5.1 billion text messages sent in Australia in 2003-04. For the occasional texter, tapping out a short message can take several minutes and is hardly worth the bother. But nimble-fingered teens churn them out like professional typists, lacing them with abbreviations such as 2moz (tomorrow), bf (boyfriend) and omg (Oh, my God!). At stricter schools, pupils type and send messages during class without removing their phone from their pocket. During the last school holidays, when 16-year-old John was on a phone deal that offered free texting, "I was texting my girlfriend all the time," he says. "I could have told you everything she did every minute of the day."

So what's the next step for the beach boy who has the girl's number? You don't muck about, explains the tall, blond Tank. Best to fire off a message that night, something like, "hi its tank met u @ beach 2day how ru wots up." With luck, the girl will message back and they'll exchange innocent texts for a few days. It then falls to the boy to raise the stakes. Tank's preferred lines are, "when was yr last bf" or "how far have u gone." A girl you've met once for five minutes replies to that? "Sure," says Tank. "They might say 'third ["base]".' Or they might just fang it out there that they've had sex." From the guy's point of view, the further the girl says she's been, the better. Tank would then suggest they meet. If the girl agrees, a "hook-up" or petting session might take place at the movies, a park or a party. Right now, Tank says, he's having this kind of relationship with five girls, and plenty of his mates are, too.

Sitting around a kitchen table, three 15-year-old girls—friends at their Sydney high school—laugh uproariously at the "how far have u gone" line. But it's a laugh of recognition. "The guys use it," says Kathleen. "Girls never do. The guys have to venture out and do that—it's their role." When it's put to them that some girls reply "third," they're in stitches again. You do sometimes reply honestly, says Sophie; other times a girl will feel "creeped out" and stop texting. Or she might flirt a little: "how far have u gone. ill tell u if u tell me." Irrespective of the content of a text, the girls say, it's exciting to receive one. "It's like an adrenaline rush," says Kathleen, "unless it's from your mum." One of the great advantages of texting, boys say, is that it lets them avoid all contact with girls' parents. Exchanges happen late at night when parents assume their children are sleeping. Although they're in bed, sleep is the last thing on their minds. Pressed for examples of raunchy texting, a 15-year-old boy who asks to be called Lindon says, "Well, she could be explaining what she's doing to herself." Omg. Another plus, he says, is that you can show these messages to your mates at school the next day. With newer phones now equipped to send photos and video messages, the next step in this lewd dance isn't hard to predict. "Yeah, that happens a bit," says Lindon. "But it costs too much."

There's evidence that texting may be dragging down the average age at which teenagers first have sex. Conducted by various universities and published in 2003, the Australian Study of Health and Relationships found that age to be 16 for both boys and girls—down from 18 and 19 respectively for their parents' generation. In the Oslo study, of teens aged 13-18, less than 10% who did not have cell phones reported having had intercourse; among the most active texters the figure was more than 66%. Although "sexual behaviors are shaped by a host of influences," study leader Willy Pedersen concluded, "We can attribute the early sexual encounters directly to the use of cell phones."

Among the 20-odd boys Time spoke to, none suggested they had feelings for the girls they were texting. Would a boy ever tell his mates he was crazy about a girl? "Only if he wanted to be beaten up," says Tank. Unsurprisingly, girls see things differently. "I don't think you can develop a meaningful relationship around texting," says Kathleen. She and her friends are more likely to find boyfriends at their school and have text relationships with boys from other schools. "Sometimes you want the affection of a relationship," says Nina. "But other times you just want a little fun where nobody's going to get too involved." Message to parents: "do u know wot yr teens r up 2?"

• Daniel Williams
• When Fingers Do the Flirting