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Average teenager sends over 3,300 texts every month
This is double any other age group, including 18 to 24 year-olds, who send about 1,630 texts in any given month (three texts every hour of being awake). Since 2008, the main reason teens buy a cellphone has changed: safety used to top the list, but now text messaging is the main reason.
Although teenagers send the most texts, they don't talk on the phone much; they use fewer minutes than any age group except adults 55 and older. Voice calls among teens were down 14 percent. Adults in their 20s and early 30s tend to use the most minutes.
In almost all the age groups, there is a gender gap: females, especially teenagers, exchanged significantly more texts and used more minutes communicating. Female teens received an average of 4,050 texts per month and talked an average of 753 minutes per month, while males the same age received only 2,539 texts and talked for 525 minutes. In data usage, however, male teens used an average of 75MB of data, while females logged 53MB. In short, males use their phones more as gadgets, while females use them more as communication devices.
User Comments: 27
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This is somewhat surprising. I knew kids texted quite a bit, but for 3300 to be an average is insane.
I am between 25-34 and I would put myself in probably the 45-54 range for texting, however I do use it to talk a lot on it and naturally since I am male, I do tend to regard my phone as a gadget. I just really hate texting though because normally if I am speaking to someone I need to be specific and I just cannot accomplish that through text.
I am sure most of those texts involve plenty of loling and rofling however... still it is somewhat alarming parents would even let their kids text that much, I would cut them off instantly, maybe give them some slack if they were a 4.0 student.
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It is crazy. What's even more weird is that phone calls are unlimited and free (based on your monthly rate), whereas texting costs additional money either via a texting package or per-text fee. So instead of calling up someone and taking 15 seconds to say what you have to say, teens prefer taking the 3-4 minutes to text the same thing AND pay extra for it.
Not a bright bunch....
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TomSEA said:
It is crazy. What's even more weird is that phone calls are unlimited and free (based on your monthly rate), whereas texting costs additional money either via a texting package or per-text fee. So instead of calling up someone and taking 15 seconds to say what you have to say, teens prefer taking the 3-4 minutes to text the same thing AND pay extra for it.
Not a bright bunch....
You can get unlimited texting.
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Rubbish
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I agree that is rubbish, 3,339 messages a month... you'd have blisters on your fingers.
I work in IT, but still manage to do with some 10 SMS a month.
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tengeta said:
Wow, I don't come anywhere close to that.
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"You can get unlimited texting."
Yes, on top of your regular monthly phone fee.
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Down the block from my house the local police set up with 12 officers distributed around the intersection. They called it a saturation. I wandered down the block to ask them what was going on and he told me that they were a unit of cops from 6 counties that were getting federal funds to do these "saturation's". in the ten minutes i was talking to one of the cops, they pulled over 3 girls/women for 'texting while driving'. Last year my wife was plowed into at 75 mph by a women who was texting, and damn near killed her.
anyone understand why it is that if you are going to invest the time to text 3,300 a month, why you don't just dial the damn number and actually talk to them?
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When you say "rubbish", do you mean you don't believe the stats? The article says this equates to 6 texts for every hour they are awake. How would this put blisters on your fingers? My coworkers and I are at our computers typing for 5+ hours straight each day (data entry) and we don't seem to have any problems. I even type for an additional few hours once I get home (surfing, journal, etc.). Sorry, I just don't see how this is unbelievable.
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LOL, I only send text messages twice or maybe four times a month.
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Yeah just wait till all those teens become drivers.. We are in for some trouble. The need to make standard some type of speech to text service in all phones. My son is 12 and he just text's away. I think I'm going to take his phone away. They are all so addicted to it. Always his friends do the same thing. I wanted him to have one so I could reach him but I'm debating if it's even worth it. I wish I could lock it down to just my number
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princeton said:
TomSEA said:"You can get unlimited texting."
Yes, on top of your regular monthly phone fee.
Well here all minutes are limited but plans come with unlimited text.
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I think this is hilarious! We all know it's not "teenagers", it's teenage girls.
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Lol only 75mb of data? I use well over 2 gigs every month.
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Leeky said:
I agree that is rubbish, 3,339 messages a month... you'd have blisters on your fingers.I work in IT, but still manage to do with some 10 SMS a month.
My sister (just turned 16) has averaged 3000+ txt messages a month for the last 6 months of her contract. Last month she sent almost 4000 and actually got a letter from her provider warning her she was unfairly abusing their "subject to fair use" policies on her unlimited txt allowance.
Its quite possible.
I was away for 6 days this week, and sent 196 messages to my wife in that time. If you do regularly txt it can be surprising how quickly they do add up. Even the minutes add up, I regualrly exceed 700 minutes talktime a month on my contract phone.
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This isn't implausible; a lot of people use SMS the same way as one would use an instant message service like Windows Live Messenger.
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Lets hope they cut back a bit after getting their drivers licences or things may get ugly...
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@red
I consider myself weird in this respect, I 'prefer' to call instead of text, the upside (not for the carrier) of it is, I text 4-5 times* a year that is about it, downside well ...... they make more money out of me
* i.e. when the person I am trying to call is unreachable.
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Haha its not quite rubbish, i have 46,865 texts and have only had my phone for a year
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St1ckM4n said:
I don't see why you'd 'brag' about it. Someone up top put it simply to them being stupid.
I get so many rubbish texts from friends. "lol", "ok", "bye", etc. This along with writing single-word/sentence txts adds up to the ridiculous number.
Add to this the mp3 player phenomenon, and facebook groups like "I'll pretend to do something on my phone to avoid talking to strangers", and it's obvious that there is an underlying social problem.
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Isn't That Special......
Haha its not quite rubbish, i have 46,865 texts and have only had my phone for a year I don't know who the "lucky" recipient is, I just thank God, you're not inflicting it. on me
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Leeky said:I don't know who the "lucky" recipient is, I just thank God, you're not inflicting it. on me
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I am 17, I send on average 5 texts a month. I used to have unlimited texts and used less than 10, I only had it for PS3 and internets :P
I expected text usage to fall as more use mobile internet/ facebook/ skype ETC to communicate.
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Given that the US is so far behind Europe on GSM technology its amazing the teenagers have caught up, in Ireland that figure is a normal everyday occurance. Welcome to the modern world.
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Wow that is an insane amount of text messages......
I can believe it, especially from see teenage girls text.
Me personally I might use 100 text messages a month.
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