Slashdot Mirror
SMS Text Messaging & Youth Debt One
securitas writes "The New York Times' Lisa W. Foderaro reports on the impact of SMS text messaging and resulting debt on America's youth. The predictable but seldom-considered effect of the recently available technology combined with the social role instant messaging and SMS play are leading to bills that youth and parents alike can't afford. 'Many high school and college students accustomed to sending unlimited instant messages on their computers do not adapt easily to text messaging's pay-per-message format, and end up with unexpectedly high bills' ranging from $300 to $800 per month. One school principal says that 'many students were blindsided by costs associated with text-messaging and other features, like customized ring tones"
Recieving mail is free. Most cell phone plans, recieving text messages is free, sending costs. However, kids will use them at school like IM clients, so they can talk to their friends without the teacher noticing (I'm in High School, I see it a lot). They'll hold the cell phone under the desk, and talk back and forth. Having gotten used to IM responses, short messages are used. $0.10 for "LOL" is excessive in my mind, but they don't seem to realize it (until they get the bill!)
...that isn't a prepay phone? Virgin Mobile and other companies make phones that require you to buy a $20 prepaid card at your local grocery store ahead of time. This makes it easy to meter your cell phone usage and prevents this kind of insanity. Great for adults, too.
Oh, and maybe not giving them a cell at all would work, too.
One school principal says that 'many students were blindsided by costs associated with text-messaging and other features, like customized ring tones'
Wow, what a frank admission by one Mr. Kevin Truitt that he isn't properly teaching kids to grow up in today's society. How hard is it to get a math problem reworded to make such costs more obvious? "Little Billy sends Suzie 8 eight SMS a day at 12 cents each . . ."
I asked basically the same question on slashdot a while ago, and got an interesting response. Of course I can't find the post now, so I'll have to go by memory.
Basically, when the GSM standard was first created, SMS messages weren't thought about too much. They were shoved into some teeny little side band that was used for low-bandwidth control information or something along those lines. The designers didn't forsee the incredible popularity that SMS would have in the future. The end result is that even though SMS messages are incredibly low bandwidth, and there is a ton of bandwidth floating around, they can't use it because they're restricted to this tiny piece of the spectrum. That's not to say that the price isn't also due to some nice gouging on the part of the companies, but there are good technical reasons for a minute of relatively high-bandwidth voice to cost less than an SMS.
This is pure speculation on my part, but this may also by why MMS often costs less than SMS even though they usually contain a lot more data.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
In July, I caught my twit of a summer-student/intern severely abusing her internet privileges. I couldn't fire her because she was a short-term contract employee and some other HR-policy crap. My first response was to cut her off, so I blocked all the IM traffic coming out of her computer. I gave her a what-for and put a parental blocker on her machine (she still needed some access to the net to do her job). She thought she was being secretive about the whole thing and HER FIRST RESPONSE was to pretend to type and work, all the while diddling her cell phone under the desk. When she switched to her cellphone she would spend ALL DAY msn'ing back and forth with her pals. I was rightly pissed off at first. There was nothing I could do unless I could prove it, and I couldn't prove it without violating a bunch of organizational privacy rules. But all was right with my world when she vapidly proclaimed at the lunch table one day that her recently arrrived monthly phone bill was roughly equivalent to her monthly pay. Easy come, easy go.
And she just didn't get it.
Still, it was quite a waste. Soured my opinion of summer-students all around.