By now, we’re all pretty familiar with the so-called hazards of text messaging. Sore thumbs, skyrocketing SMS charges, opening an innocuous-looking photo attachment only to find yourself looking at a picture of someone’s butt…psh! Old news, my friends. But just when we thought there couldn’t possibly be any more undiscovered risks to text messaging, they threw this one at us:

Teenager Falls Into Open Manhole While Texting.

Sparkler thelionking has some creative ideas about how to pass time while you're waiting for your life to start (aka when you finally get your license.) Enjoy! —SparkNotes Editors

Ah, summer.  That wondrous time of year when the birds are singing, school is out, and everybody has their freakin’ driver’s license but you.

You are still languishing in the passenger seat of mom’s Volvo, which, contrary to Stephenie Meyer’s beliefs, is not sexy or cool in any way. But the lameness of the station wagon isn’t the worst part. The worst part of not being able to drive is waiting.

Sparkler chocoflakken chimes in on the second part of our series about texters we could live without. (Here's Part I, in case you missed it.) Enjoy!  —SparkNotes Editors

Face it, we all know at least one. Maybe you ARE one: the Over-Excited Texter.

You know who I mean. The one who's sooooooo excited to have a device that almost instantly sends messages that she abuses said device like a 7-year-old abuses Hannah Montana songs. There are several kinds of Over-Excited Texters:

Editor's Note: Here's Part II of this week's Chris Listens. If you haven't already, read Part I.

I really want to learn how to dance, but I have two left feet. It's really frustrating because practically everyone in my grade can dance like an extra in one of the million-gazillion dance movies in theaters these days. Whenever I try to dance, people assume it's going to suck because I don't really dance and when I try to, it’s kind of ugly. I don't really want to take lessons because everyone else my age is good, and it would be all awkward and embarrassing to have people laugh at me while I stumble around in a tutu. I've now been reduced to dancing in the shower, and I'm getting tired of it. What should I do?

Competitors, warm up those thumbs and do some stretches cause it's time for the 2009 Texting Championship! No, we're not even making this one up. The phone company, LG, is holding this year's competition in Canada (don't worry, even texters not prone to adding "eh?" after sentences are allowed to compete). And before you go scoffing at this as some advertising-gimmicky-waste-of-time, please note that the winner gets $50,000. Yeah, that's some serious cash.

In order to qualify, potential participants, called "contextants" (not really), have to beat the clock by turning regular ole' English phrases into text language—you know, "Are you there yet?" becomes "r u thr yet?" And while we hate to burst your bubble, the time to enter has now passed. As your favorite coach would say (in text abbreviation, of course), "dnt wry chmp, thrs alwys nxt yr." But fear not, because we've come up with a little texting tourney that you host while you get ready for next year.  Ready, set, text!

Guess what? You text. A lot. We know, no biggie. But apparently, your parents and other such technologically paranoid adults are overwhelmed by your texting obsession...er, habits. Teens are now averaging over 2,700 texts a month and it's freaking them out so completely that they're writing news articles about it. Yeah, we know. They should chill out. But some docs are also worried about what texting could do to your thumbs—they're talking about "musculoskeletal disorders" and "temporary or permanent damage to your thumbs." That's some serious stuff.

Sometimes, you just can't get to to a computer —we know, it's rare.  But if you don't have a super-spiffy cell phone with internet access and can't get to Wikipedia or Google, who can answer your burning questions? Well, there are a slew of texting services, like Cha Cha and kgb, that promise to do just that (Hey wait! Before you start rapid-fire-texting them, find out about fees!).  The commercials for these text services make it seem like can answer anything—yes, ANYTHING.  They're like the Magic 8 Balls of texting.  But we think we can stump 'em. Sooo, here's our list of questions we want answered:

- Why does my chem teacher smell like pork chops and burned rubber?

Here at SparkNotes, we've been mining for rockstar Sparklers - real readers with enough wit and wisdom to make us laugh so hard that Dr. Pepper shoots out of our noses (really, it can happen). Textpert Sparkler Stellar1993 submitted the following gem. Enjoy!    -SparkNotes Editors

Okay, what I am about to elaborate on drives me insane.

I hate it when you text a huge paragraph, like you're totally venting and pouring out your inner struggles, or you spend a lot of time texting out about something funny that happened to you that day and then the person replies:

When I was 16—which was not that long ago, but long enough that nobody had a camera phone yet—I let my art student boyfriend do a portrait of me. It was pen-and-ink on white paper, poster sized, with a sort of impressionist flair...

...oh, and did I mention I was naked?

Why, yes! In what may be the world’s most low-tech precursor to the teen “sexting” epidemic, I went topless (and bottomless) for love. It seemed like a great idea: intimate, interesting, and kinda sexy. Then, a few weeks later, I came home and found my mother, standing in the foyer, brandishing The Naked Portrait.

Hey, did you know that teenagers use their cellular phones to do this new-fangled thing called “text messaging”? Well, the media sure does: all of a sudden, they're inundating us with hysterical rants about “sexting,” worried ruminations on “text-bullying,” and this nervous piece about the 15 year-old who sent a whopping 6,473 text messages in one month.

We love these articles, mostly because they always insinuate that texting will eventually cause the End of the World. But even we are forced to admit that texting can cause terrible problems…in your pants.