More Than 1 Out of 3 Teenagers Have Not Told Their Parents About Their Current Relationship, Reports Teen Blogging Community StageofLife.com
Dallastown, PA (PRWEB) May 30, 2014 -- With the high school prom season wrapping up, the international teen writing community, StageofLife.com, asked thousands of high school and college students to take its poll about prom, love, and relationships as part of its monthly writing contests and teen surveys.
The results revealed the following statistics about teenagers and their relationships:
--61% of teens have been "in love.” The percentage is higher for boys (64%) verses girls (59.6%).
--10% of teens spend more than $450 on prom.
--94% of teens believe in “true love.”
--49% of teenagers believe in "love at first sight."
--60% of students think that the perception of teenagers in love is "negative" instead of positive.
--46% of teens have had a friend "dump them" in favor of hanging out with a boyfriend or girlfriend. This is more common with girls than boys (32% of boys have had this happen to them verses 51% of girls).
--“Honesty/Trust”, “Friendship”, and “Possessing Similar Values/Morals” rank as the #1, #2, and #3 most important factors (respectfully) in having a "lasting love relationship."
--92% of teens want to get married at some point in their lives. This statistic is higher for males than females (97% verses 90%).
--24 to 26-years-old is the "ideal age" teens feel for getting married.
--20% of teens have had a boyfriend or girlfriend their parents "disproved of".
--60% of high school students plan to break-up with their current boyfriends or girlfriends when they leave for college.
--70% of teenagers text their boyfriend/girlfriend more than talk on the phone. Boys tend to text more than girls (73.5% of boys verses 69% of girls).
--39% of teens have not told their parents about their current relationship.
Over 4,900 students visited the essay and survey page during the prom season and over 200+ teen bloggers submitted an essay to StageofLife.com sharing their personal story that answered the question, ”Why must I be a teenager in love?”
Essay themes touched on topics ranging from the influence of the media on teen relationships to the negative implications of holding the idea of teen love on a pedestal. The winning 1st place student essay, “Only time can tell” was written by Gayatri Gopalakrishnan, a graduating senior from India who shared the lesson that there is a time for everything, including love.
The winning 1st place non-student essay was submitted by septuagenarian Barbara Muchow from Goleta, CA in her story, “Teenagers in Love: My Hero,” who told Stage of Life that she’s planning to work up little vignettes for her grandchildren in future stories, “My younger granddaughter often asks me to tell her “stories” and she listens intently,” she says.
Stage of Life also selected a winner from its “Short Short Story” Twitter contest which tied into the teens and love writing prompt. The winning Tweet came from @jaymie_leanne who wrote, “The same arms used to hold me were used to humiliate me. He was supposed to be simple, but he made my future pain-ridden.”
Winners from the writing and Twitter contests received gift cards from StageofLife.com educational corporate sponsors Applebee's, IHOP, Papa John's, and SpaWeek.com.
Additionally, the three student essay finalists received an autograph copy of a book signed by participating nationally published authors who donated a signed copy of their book as a prize to the winning StageofLife.com writing contest finalists.
The participating authors included…
--Alain de Botton – Essays in Love (Picador 2006)
--Jennifer E. Smith - The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (Poppy 2013)
--Steve Brezenoff - Guy in Real Life (Balzer + Bray 2014)
To read all of the essays and download the full statistics and teen trend report on this and other monthly writing contests and teen trends, visit StageofLife.com.
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StageofLife.com is a privately funded, startup company founded in 2009. The website's mission is to change the world, one story at a time. The site welcomed its 1,000,000th visitor last year and provides an international writing community and educational resources for today's teen, Gen X, Gen Y, and Baby Boomer generations.
Eric Thiegs, StageofLife.com, http://www.stageoflife.com, +1 (717) 244-0006, [email protected]
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