College students may realize that texting in class or in a shower is inappropriate, so why do they do it?

"We have looked at inappropriate texting behavior -- texting while driving, for instance -- before, but what we wanted to find out is whether the people who are engaging in these forms of behavior even know whether or not it is the right thing to do," said Marissa Harrison, associate professor of psychology, Penn State Harrisburg.

Researchers at Penn State University found that college students are not necessarily trying to create new norms in texting behaviors, but that breaking with these norms is just too tempting for them in most cases. When they receive texts, the temptation to check their texts and send messages back is much greater than the urge to pay attention to their present situation.

For the study, researchers asked more than 150 college age students to fill out a 70-question survey on their attitudes toward texting in various situations and their general texting habits.

In the survey, college students admitted to texting during funerals, in the shower, during sex and while using the toilet.

Harrison and her colleagues found that while most participants said they considered texting while taking a shower to be socially unacceptable, more than 34 percent said they did it anyway. Most agreed that texting during a religious service or while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance was wrong, but more than 22 percent texted during services and about 11 percent said they texted during the pledge. Approximately 7.4 percent texted while having sex, even though most admitted that it was wrong.

Some behaviors -- such as texting in the bathroom, or while eating -- are becoming more acceptable for college students.

"Whereas some people may deem this odd, most college students agree that eating and toilet texts are the new normal," the researchers said.

Harrison, who has been trained as an evolutionary psychologist, suggests that the forces of natural selection may play a part in creating this behavior. The buzzes and flashing lights of texting devices may signal opportunities or threats that cause people to pay less attention to their present environment and consider the future.

"We are all programmed to notice movement and change, so maybe those buzzes and bells of texting, just like certain sounds that used to indicate the charging of a predator, for example, reinforce the need to find out what is going on," Harrison said.

The findings are detailed in the Social Science Journal.