Girls are different from boys in their texting habits...

...with resulting differences in school performance. Once again, psychologists treat every example of obvious differences between males and females as if they've made a profound discovery.

As reported in a press release from the American Psychological Association, October 5, 2015:

WASHINGTON - Teenage girls who compulsively text are more likely than their male counterparts to do worse academically, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

"It appears that it is the compulsive nature of texting, rather than sheer frequency, that is problematic," said lead researcher Kelly M. Lister-Landman, PhD, of Delaware County Community College. "Compulsive texting is more complex than frequency of texting. It involves trying and failing to cut back on texting, becoming defensive when challenged about the behavior, and feeling frustrated when one can't do it..."

...Girls do not text more frequently than do boys, but they appear to text for different purposes, Lister-Landman said. "Borrowing from what we know about Internet communication, prior research (e.g., Baron, 2004) has shown that boys use the Internet to convey information while girls use it for social interaction and to nurture relationships," she said. "Girls in this developmental stage also are more likely than boys to ruminate with others, or engage in obsessive, preoccupied thinking, across contexts. Therefore, it may be that the nature of the texts girls send and receive is more distracting, thus interfering with their academic adjustment."

Go here for full text of the original article.

Many people hated physical education class (and still do)

This doesn’t come as a surprise to those of us (including this blogger) who were usually the last ones picked to play on teams during Phys Ed class. It doesn’t sound as though much has changed in the teaching of Phys Ed since George Leonard’s article Why Johnny Can’t Run ( a chapter adapted from his book The Ultimate Athlete) appeared in the August 1975 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (pp. 55-60). I quit taking Phys Ed after Grade 10 in the first half of 1976, but my last Phys Ed teacher, Rick Capyk, was the best I had in that subject, because he had some sympathy for the non-jocks among us. He came up with the idea of intramural leagues in various sports where we could pick our own teams, with one level of play for the jocks, and another level for the rest of us (my junior high math teacher, Mr. Farrelly, had done a similar thing for some of us a couple of years earlier). I started a flag football team, and we had a lot of fun. I have no idea if such intramural leagues still exist, but the idea is still worth trying.

Gym class makes grown-ups shun sports

Bad memories of phys-ed linked to inactive lifestyles

By Elise Stolte, edmontonjournal.com
January 7, 2010

EDMONTON — The reason many adults don't play sports may be related to the humiliation they faced as kids in gym class, when they couldn't climb a rope with everyone watching.

That might seem obvious, but University of Alberta researcher Billy Strean said he was shocked by the painful, visceral reactions he got when he interviewed people about their gym teachers even 40 years later.