Texting Teens Generating OMG Phone Bills

theodp writes "Last month, Washington high school junior Sofia Rubenstein used 6,807 text messages, which, at a rate of 15 cents apiece for most of them, pushed her family's Verizon Wireless bill over $1,100. She and other teens are finding themselves in hot water after their families get blindsided with huge phone bills thanks to hefty a la carte text messaging charges." Use of SMS in the US doubled from 2005 to 2006.

Comments

Two words:

[mrjb]

Prepaid phone.

Re:Two words:

[TheRealFixer]

I've got 3 words:

No More Phone.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

bad parenting

Re:Two words:

[ms1234]

Finger massage.

Re:Two words:

[mobby_6kl]

Online account management.

I don't know about Verizon, but around here Vodafone lets you see and control what your children/employees (for small business accounts) do with the subscriptions you're paying.

Re:Two words:

[chris_eineke]

That'll cost her family another 30c.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop being a pussy: Beat your kid.

Re:Two words:

[nEoN nOoDlE]

3 words: Unlimited TXT messaging

Re:Two words:

[microAmp]

Don't you mean?

66666 666677733 7446666633

Re:Two words:

[arivanov]

You are not far off. This bill is nothing compared to the next one for RSI treatement. And while massage may help for a while it will provide only temporary relief.

Re:Two words:

[__aaclcg7560]

You can do that. Then your kid will yell child abuse to the local Children Protective Services and have you arrested. A talk show host was talking last night about how today's politically correct society won't allow parents to discipline their own children. A spanking is physical abuse. Going to bed without dinner is starvation. Kicking the kid out of the car to have him walk home is abandonment. Won't be long before denying the kid the right to text message is considered a form of abuse.

Re:Two words:

[watchingeyes]

Yes, because limiting access to technology is so much better than the myriad of other solutions to the problem:

1) Unlimited Texting plans
2) Pre-paid phones
3) Forcing the teens to pay their own phone bills

etc etc

Why don't we also completely forbid their access to computers as well and keep them in locked rooms just because they MAY look at porn.

Kind of a short-sighted solution if you ask me.

Re:Two words:

[Ucklak]

My dad had a paddle and he put a date on it every time he used it.
That [paddle] was something [grand]parents used to give their children when they became grandparents.

My 6th grade teacher left her paddle on her desk and drilled a hole in it every time she used it.
Nothing like hearing the screams of disobedient kids in the halls of my school to keep the rest of us in line.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not mere child abuse, that's mental torture!!

Re:Two words:

[contrapunctus]

Children are what you make them.
If you're a good parent, you shouldn't have to resort to abusing them with the examples you provided.

Re:Two words:

[__aaclcg7560]

But what if you're a good parent and your child is just plain evil? Then it becomes a Catch-22: if you do something, you go to jail; if you do nothing, you go to jail. My Dad had that argument with a judge when I refused to go to school and the judge couldn't tell him what the solution was. Society has no answers for the children who are not perfect little angels. As a parent, you're screwed either way.

Re:Two words:

[stinerman]

A spanking is physical abuse.

Yes, its battery and/or assault and should be treated as such.

Re:Two words:

[pdbaby]

Why don't we also completely forbid their access to computers as well and keep them in locked rooms just because they MAY look at porn.

That's an excellent idea! We could spare all the money that goes into researching web filtering software. Genius. You, sir, should be a politician!

Re:Two words:

[cyclop]

You're kidding, isn't it?

Re:Two words:

[OrangeTide]

When your child catches on that nothing they do has consequences, then it's that much harder to raise a well behaved child.

Re:Two words:

[mobby_6kl]

> But what if you're a good parent and your child is just plain evil?

I heard somewhere that Dr. Evil is looking for children to adopt, he's apparently not quite satisfied with "one calorie" Scott.

Re:Two words:

[cyclop]

In fact, in Italy (AFAIK one of the countries with the heaviest cell phones/SMS usage), something like that is completely unheard of, because all cell phones use prepaid cards (usually in the 20-100 Euros range).

Leaving a teen with a cell phone and a plan paid by the parents sounds completely nuts to me.

Re:Two words:

[contrapunctus]

There are consequences, just not physical threatening.

Re:Two words:

[LordKazan]

and that is undeniably, unexcusably, child abuse. *grabs dev pysch text off his shelf and opens it up and points out what happens to children raised under such conditions*

Re:Two words:

[JimBobJoe]

Two words: Prepaid phone.

The problem with that is, these days, parents get their children cell phones so that they can contact them wherever they are. (In that regard, cell phones have made parenting much easier, and it's made it easier on kids as well--you have a lot of freedom to do what you want and the only thing you're required to do is keep the phone on and always answer it.)

At any rate, the easiest and cheapest thing to do is just to add a phone to your family plan. That way phone calls between the phones are all free.

Prepaid phones, however, cannot take calls from the parent's phones for free.

Re:Two words:

[__aahlyu4518]

4 words :

Dumb kids.
Dumber parents.

Re:Two words:

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Yes, there is an answer: Ritalin.

But seriously, most of the time bad behavior is the result of misunderstood parenting.

Some people give the kid no boundaries and not enough guidance, which is a disaster.
Some people give their kids too many boundaries and too much guidance, which also is a disaster.

(And quite a few parents get it right)

The kid in scenario 1 will feel like their parents don't love it and don't care for its wellbeing.
The kid in scenario 2 will either rebel, or become a follower unable to make its own decisions.

Balanced does it. The real world is an ambiguous place, and your job is to prepare your kid for the real world.

Re:Two words:

[cashman73]

Today's kids will think that taking away their phone classifies as, "child abuse."

Re:Two words:

[alisson]

Excuse me while I doubt you've ever had children.

Why is it that spanking, bed without dinner, or walking home no longer acceptable forms of punishment? Asking your child to try harder to make 'positive choices' isn't going to stop any disciplinary problems.

Re:Two words:

[packeteer]

No doubt it kept you in line but at what cost. How many people grew up with issues becuase of the borderline physical abuse they suffered. Its not about how bad the beatings are really, its about the anticipation and fear of a beating. That really messes with children's heads.

Re:Two words:

[BakaHoushi]

When I was still a little kid, my brother went through what we call his "rage" period. He'd get so insanely jealous and angry over the smallest things, he'd get into a fury and break things, smash down my door, and even though I was a year older, he could easily beat me to a pulp. I was so afraid he was going to kill me.

Years later it turns out he has a number of mental conditions and it's taken years of therapy, but now he's a semi-normal boy. ...Okay, so I still say he's an idiot with problems out the wazoo, but that's a sibling thing. But what could my parents have done? They took him to therapy, they took him to the hospital, they punished him by taking away possessions, what else could they do? Hitting him would certainly result in reports of abuse. It really can be that some kids are just fucked up in the head.

What I'm about to say goes against just about everything modern society says to us, but I believe it's the truth:
PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. WHAT WORKS FOR ONE WILL NOT WORK FOR ANOTHER.
When I was a child, I was rather... obedient. If my mother said "do this" or "don't do this," I did or didn't do it, respectively (I'm sure if she said "kill a man," I might have had some objections, but thankfully, such requests were rare). I didn't really need much discipline. And when I did, taking away my games or a time out always seemed to make me feel guilty, and I apologized, etc. All in all, physical violence was not needed.

My brother, though, as I've explained, was an altogether different story. Can it be that even though we are siblings, we are quite different, and thus require different methods to develop properly? *LE GASP!*

I theorize (though I am not a psychiatrist) that some kids can learn discipline through a time out. Some may require a little yelling or a slap on the wrist. Some kids might need a good boot or a belt to their backsides. And some kids... well, some kids are just rotten, and no sweet talking or belt slapping is going to change that.

Is this view that bizarre? Whatever happened to "Some people are just naturally selfish jerks?"

Re:Two words:

[Angostura]

"Eat your dinner, or go to be without, your choice" is not physically threatening.

Re:Two words:

[trainsnpep]

I'm sorry, but this isn't true. While many plans are pre-paid, most aren't. Texting usually costs 0.15 or 0.20 each.

Re:Two words:

[wellingj]

My parents gave me guidance without boundaries....
Seemed to work out ok, but wouldn't we all like to think of ourselves as 'ok'?

Re:Two words:

[ColaMan]

This is the odd thing about the US mobile phone system that I can never figure out.

Here, in Australia, there's no such thing as being charged to receive a call on your mobile. The caller pays the charges to connect to you, with all mobile numbers having an obvious prefix (04) that gives the caller an indication that this will cost them more than a normal PSTN call. So, I have a prepaid phone sim lying around here that has 12 months of access on it, and currently has $2 credit. People can call me that entire 12 months and it doesn't cost me anything.

For "normal" use, I have a phone plan for $35/mo that gives me untimed calls to any landline and Telstra mobile number in Australia for 35 cents, with other telco's mobiles the rate is 35c/min. I have my wife's phone on the same account with the same plan for her, and calls between us are free and untimed. Even, for some reason, 3G video calls, which I thought were supposed to be charged at the 35c/min rate..... but I'm not about to mention that to Telstra now :-P. Now , that plan's a good rate for a user who makes a relatively small number of calls , but talks for a long time - tech support is a good fit for this plan. But there's a plethora of phone plans out there that all have the same basic tenet - your access to the network is (mostly) free, and you pay to make calls, and that's it.

All this US business with "minutes" and crap just seems weird. Can someone explain it in detail for the foreigners?

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever read any of JD Fitzgerald's books? Other people aren't pussies like you, they don't grow up with issues because of a few bruised buttocks.

Re:Two words:

[cuby]

15 cents it's expensive. I'm in Portugal and I pay 8 euro cents (don't text too much) but there are special plans for sms addicts at 1 euro cent per message.

Re:Two words:

[swillden]

Whatever happened to "Some people are just naturally selfish jerks?"

Everyone who said it was sent to timeout.

Re:Two words:

[jaweekes]

Don't you mean "PPP"; it would be cheaper.

Re:Two words:

[Vexar]

Proof that the Western World is getting decadent: we can't beat stupidity out of our children anymore. It is a simple psychological tool, called the stick. Sometimes the stick works with one kid, and sometimes only the carrot works. Thus the oligarchy of our courts becomes the law of the Western World. Lawyers are not altruistic individuals, therefore not well-suited to making laws. Some laws only exist because someone was greedy enough to sue. Isn't it great? The only thing worse that I can think of is the over-protectiveness attitude in American government, which is why the shootings in Columbine High School violated 19 laws. Like another half-dozen were gonna stop the determined angry youth?

To that point, some kids really, really, need the carrot, and the stick is a bad idea. Just the same, spare the rod, spoil the child. Ignore the child, spoil the community.

Re:Two words:

[nurb432]

If you are stuck in the boat that you cant do anything to curb the child, then send them off to jail themselves.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

oh christ. Many kids being positive to works. Many it doesn't. The same parental advice has wildly different effects on different children. You don't know everything, deal with it ass.

Re:Two words:

[frisket]

> Prepaid phone

Do they have them in the States yet?

Re:Two words:

[demonlapin]

In the US, when mobile phones were first implemented, one of two choices could be made: either mobiles could be given a distinctive prefix (area code) of their own, or they could be integrated into the local phone systems. Because the overwhelming majority of US phone landlines feature free unlimited local calling, Americans were Not Into the idea of paying to call someone locally. Furthermore, the logic runs, the benefit of being mobile accrues to the person who is mobile, not to the person calling them, so the cost of being mobile should do so as well. So we chose to integrate them into the local systems, with the consequence that there is no easy way to know whether the phone number you are calling is a mobile or a landline; since number portability was introduced, it's virtually impossible unless you are privy to phone routing data (because what was once a landline number may now belong to a mobile).

This may or may not seem like a good idea to you, but it is the thought process that was applied. The practical upshot is that US plans feature a certain number of "primetime minutes" - minutes of phone usage between (typically) 7 am and 9 pm, M-F. Nights and weekends are free and unlimited. The network to which the destination belongs only matters if it's your own carrier; most higher-cost plans feature unlimited in-network mobile-to-mobile at all times of day or night. Otherwise, landline or mobile, it doesn't matter who you call, or who calls you. You have those minutes, you use them as you choose. With any major carrier, virtually all plans provide no-roaming service across the country.

Example: my wife's phone plan is $35/mo. For that she gets 300 primetime minutes and unlimited nights and weekends. She can make calls from anywhere in the US, to anywhere in the US, for no additional charge. This is in large measure what makes the system so palatable to Americans; for charges which are either similar to or less than total monthly charges anywhere else, we get a hugely flexible system. A GSM phone from the UK may operate in Greece, but not for the same price as if you were sitting in London.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Bollocks. I'm sorry, but you really are just talking politically correct crap.

For a start, there's no such thing as a perfect parent or a perfectly behaved child, no matter how good your intentions. If you really have children and you really believe they're little angels, have you ever had an honest discussion with their school teachers to make sure they're not just hiding their poor behaviour from you and indulging in it elsewhere? A lot of parents don't, and have absolutely no idea what they're missing. (And yes, I have worked in a school, and seen this phenomenon a surprising number of times.)

More philosophically, which is really more cruel to a child, a quick smack when they do something wrong so they understand that their behaviour isn't acceptable, or the emotional trauma of, say, being denied part of their weekly spending money allowance, which will punish them for several days?

Pain is nature's teacher, and using pain to discipline children is entirely natural. Arguments like yours, which equalise all forms of physical discipline, are painting a coloured world in black and white. In fact, I no longer support certain child protection charities precisely because they can't tell the difference between a parent with a temper who regularly beats their child (a genuine and serious problem) and a loving parent who uses occasional physical chastisement to teach their child what is and isn't acceptable behaviour.

Re:Two words:

[Belial6]

[sarcasm]Correct. Instead, we should do exactly like we do to adults when they won't obey the rules. We should call the police, and have them assault the child. Drag them off to jail, and let them be analy raped so that they can learn to never do those things again.[/sarcasm]

I don't know why people seem to think that 8 year olds are easier to reason with, and that they are somehow more likely to understand the consequences of their actions. The fact is, every city in the country hires people to be there to commit acts of violence against those who will not obey the rules. We like to hope that it wont come to that, and for most of us it never does, but in the end, the police forces are a necessary evil for keeping those who would refuse to obey the rules from running rampant. As a society, we have traditionally placed the responsibility of being police, judge, jury, and 'executioner' for children, on their parents.

Anyone that believes spanking is inherently wrong, and yet supports having a police department is simply a hypocrite. When a city successfully runs with no law enforcement, I will consider reevaluating this stance.

Do YOU believe a city can run with no law enforcement?

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with youth. Ritalin is a bad start for the answer. Less then 3% of the "ADD" youth I worked with need Ritalin. However, the rest of your post is right on. Children need boundaries. They need consequences for breaking the boundaries. They need to test hte boundaries and see the consequences of breaking the rules. And please, remember that guidance is guidance, not direction. Directions are great for setting the table (yes, our 2 year old sets the table) and other things that should be done the same way each time, but we don't have a whole lot of rules. We do have a bit of guidance, but not too much for her to remember, and we make sure she learns it before applying boundaries. Children are people, and they learn. "Don't stand on the chair" is a rule that will be broken. "If you fall of the chair, you're going to hurt" is something they can do once and decided to get with the program and not stand on the chair.

You're about the only person here who's not a real retard.

Re:Two words:

[ArmedGeek]

I don't know where you are, but in Texas ..

§ 9.61. PARENT-CHILD. (a) The use of force, but not
deadly force, against a child younger than 18 years is justified:
(1) if the actor is the child's parent or stepparent or
is acting in loco parentis to the child; and
(2) when and to the degree the actor reasonably
believes the force is necessary to discipline the child or to
safeguard or promote his welfare.
(b) For purposes of this section, "in loco parentis"
includes grandparent and guardian, any person acting by, through,
or under the direction of a court with jurisdiction over the child,
and anyone who has express or implied consent of the parent or
parents.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

I get around 4k text messages a month.
About 2k From system monitor pulses and update information (yes, my boss is anal and yes, its annoying to get a message once an hour during my 12 hour cycle to let me know the system loads, from about 10 systems)
about 1k from friends
and i send about 1k myself.

There is an easy exit however, i have t-mobile, i pay 14$ and get unlimited text messaging.
Just shop around, many many places offer unlimited texting, some for as low as 4$ a month.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Somebody gonna get hurt real bad."

Re:Two words:

[mollymoo]

All this US business with "minutes" and crap just seems weird. Can someone explain it in detail for the foreigners?

Well, I'm the wrong type of foreigner, being British, but we have 'minutes' over here too. You can buy different monthly plans, which come with X number of inclusive minutes. So you might pay £15 and get 60 minutes to use that month before being charged Y pence per minute for calls. On more expensive plans, not only do you get more inclusive minutes, but the cost per minute after your inclusive minutes are used up is generally lower too. In effect, it's a bulk discount with a minimum order. You get something similar with text messages and plans which combine minutes and texts in various proportions.

Re:Two words:

[operagost]

          <--- Joke

     O
    /|\   <--- You
    / \

Re:Two words:

[__aaclcg7560]

Aren't you a little old to be fucking around in community college?

Do I go to the state university to earn a BS (that's a Bachelor in Science) in Computer Science, take out $40,000 in student loans to go to school fulltime without working, may still be too old to get a job when I do get the BS and be in debt for the rest of my life? Or do I go back to the community college to earn an AS (that's an Associate in Science) in Computer Programming, earn my certifications (A+, Network+, MCP), have my schooling paid by the federal government via a tax credit as I work full time in the industry, and graduate without any long term debt? To answer your question, no.

BTW, I never went to high school. After two years of working in construction with my Dad, I went to an adult high school to get my G.E.D. and they told me to go to the community college since I blew out their qualification exam. It took me four years to get my first associate degree in General Ed.

Anyways, I suggest you look into getting some counseling, to get to the root of why you feel the need to use defenseless children as punching bags. I don't think you're really concerned with "discipline" or anything to do with their well-being. Were you abused by your own parents growing up? Bullied by your peers? Humiliated by girls? Whatever happened in your past, get some professional help. (and, yes, lose some weight.)

I been seeing a personal counselor for the last year at school. I took care of a roommate for four years who died of Lou Gerhig's Disease in 2000, and my Mom died from breast cancer in 2004. Both of these events deeply affected me. According to my counselor, I'm just a perfectly normal human being now as I been expressing myself through artwork. Be sure to check my website next week when I post pictures of my ceramic self-portrait that I completed this semester. I also been going to the gym for the last five years. :)

So how do you figure that I equate "Spanking = Punching Bag" or discipline with physical abuse? I certainty hope weren't trying to make ad hominem arguement by searching my website for dirt. Only an Anonymous Coward would be that stupid. :P

Re:Two words:

[operagost]

I guess everyone born in the United States before 1950 must have been psychotic!

Re:Two words:

[Mr2001]

Indeed - and striking with an object is definitely over the line. That's physical abuse, period, no matter how much people try to apologize for it by telling nostalgic stories about how much their grandpa or headmaster used to physically abuse them.

Re:Two words:

[TFGeditor]

"If you're a good parent, you shouldn't have to resort to abusing them with the examples you provided."

And you have raised to teenage or adulthood how many children?

Re:Two words:

[twistedcubic]

"My parents gave me guidance without boundaries...."

People like to think this, but your parents probably actively made decisions which restricted your exposure to certain environments. If you lived next door to a crackhouse, say, they probably would have been more firm on the boundaries.

Re:Two words:

[__aaclcg7560]

It might've been a joke but it wasn't funny. What I was hearing on radio last night wasn't funny either.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

But what could my parents have done? They took him to therapy, they took him to the hospital, they punished him by taking away possessions, what else could they do? Hitting him would certainly result in reports of abuse. It really can be that some kids are just fucked up in the head.

Spanking is NOT abuse. You might be investigated by the CPS but they will find that you had reasonable grounds for that form of punishment. Yea you might be inconvenienced for a bit but generally the parents right to their choice of punishment hasn't entirely fallen by the wayside.

I was literally beaten as a child and you know what? I DESERVED every thing I got and probably got away with more because my parents were too tired to beat me again.
Was it wrong for my parents to beat me? NO I deserved it they did the best they could with what they had and who are we to say any different. Until we have "owner manuals" for child rearing no parent should be called into question unless it is a true case of abuse. None of this sh** of having the CPS taking away the children because the children said they were abused. You investigate first then if the allegations are founded you rectify the situation. You don't just take the word of a rebel teenager that didn't get his/her way.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Phones aren't phones without unlimited text messaging. Whether or not you agree is irrelevant, it's just a fact.

Re:Two words:

[yoyoofthemilk]

You just gave me even more justification for planning on never ever having kids.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Frankly, I don't see how you can possibly judge whether something is child abuse based on whether an object is involved anyway. Intent, OK. Physical harm caused, fair enough. Lasting psychological damage, sure. But whether a kid gets belted, caned, or just the traditional back-hander really isn't what matters, and I don't really see how any other position makes sense whether or not you agree with the use of physical discipline.

Personally, I find it odd how older generations who were so "abused" often have much greater respect for others than those raised in the past few years with no fear of real repercussions if they break the rules. I'm afraid every single argument put forward by the "it's all child abuse" PC crowd pretty much falls flat by the simple reasoning that their softly-softly approach doesn't work. This is abundantly clear from the changes in school discipline in places like the UK as teachers and then parents systematically had their rights to physically discipline badly behaved children eroded.

Sure, some parents hit their kids way too much and that's wrong, and sure, if all parents had degrees in child psychology and access to state-of-the-art resources for correcting children's problem behaviours immediately, that might reduce the need to almost zero. But in reality, I'd rather have a world where kids got a clip round the ear occasionally and had a little respect for the rules and their elders than today's PC world, where they're all little angels, laying a finger on them is called child abuse, and I hear nine-year-olds who've just scratched right down the side of my neighbour's new car doing hundreds of pounds of damage telling him point-blank that it's his problem because "I can't commit a crime, I'm only 9!".

Re:Two words:

[McDutchie]

But what if you're a good parent and your child is just plain evil?

Then physically and mentally abusing your kid will only cause him to become more evil.

So don't.

Instead, stop seeing your child as "just plain evil", and start looking for solutions to his problems.

Re:Two words:

[Ucklak]

I know to stay from cacti because they stick you when you get too close. I've also been stuck by cacti before and it hurts. I knew before to stay away and I really know now. Not a big deal, I don't have hatred toward cacti, I actally think they are beautiful plants especially when they bloom.

My parents kept me inline (spanked) because I lied that had consequences for other people. You call it abuse, I call it a lesson learned and I deserved it. I would have resented them if I had to take drugs because I lied. I was really too young to know how to think that far ahead as to what a little lie could do so a spanking was well deserved. That I understood.

I never got spanked in school. The kids who got spanked in school either straightened up and never got spanked again or were those 'problem' kids that got suspended and spanked habitually. I can say that most of those habitual 'problem' kids are in the category of dead or in jail as my schoolyard friend and I kind of keep tabs on the news of the town we grew up in.

I'm going to say that those habitualy spanked kids were always problem kids that grew into problem adults. They entered a life of crime because of their environment and personal choices, not because some teacher actually cared to give their asses a whup nor did they remember the time they got whipped in the 6th grade the first night in the slammer.

Not everyone has a living home and that is sad. That isn't my problem to fix as I can't fix it nor can you nor can anyone that wants to regulate that 'spanking' is child abuse. There are people who are unfit to be parents but you can't stop the laws of nature.

If you decide to have children, there is a period of time of 18 months that really tests your patience. It is known as the terrible twos. Parents that beat their child during that stage are child abusers. Once you can reason with them, then they can pick their own punishment. Sometimes you have to get to the lowest common denominator to make a point. Time-out doesn't work when they break your $2000 HDTV screen when you've repeatedly told them to stop throwing the ball in the house.

Re:Two words:

[Kierthos]

*grabs a pysch book and points out Pavlovian response*

You know what? As a kid, if I did something stupid, my parents spanked me. Guess what? I usually didn't do the same stupid thing twice. You want to know why, Camper Dan? Because, shockingly enough, I didn't want to get spanked again.

It's one of those marvels of thought. "Hey, I did activity X, and my parents said 'Oh hell no!' and spanked me. And 'lo and behold, I learned... they do not have a sense of humor about me starting fires, or getting in fights at school, or any of that shit."

I'm not saying that we need to have every parent resort to playing "Punch the Monkey" with their kids, but there is a damn large difference between spanking a disobediant child and physical abuse. Maybe if you took a really healthy dump and got rid of that hippie liberal crap, you'd realize this.

Re:Two words:

[McDutchie]

Sadly, that was not a joke. It is mainstream childrearing practice in the United States. (Meanwhile, Americans keep wondering why their society is so violent and fucked up.)

Re:Two words:

[WilliamSChips]

I can understand spanking or bed without dinner, but forcing them to walk home seems a bit harsh to me depending on what roads will have to be crossed for your child to get there.

Re:Two words:

[slack_prad]

Malformed link. This is the right one :)

Re:Two words:

[WilliamSChips]

Anyone that believes spanking is inherently wrong, and yet supports having a police department is simply a hypocrite.

I believe that physical abuse by the police department should be used only as a last resort when all other routes have failed, or when violence is used against them.

When a city successfully runs with no law enforcement, I will consider reevaluating this stance.

Ancient Rome. The only thing approaching a police force was the military and very few active-duty milites stayed in Rome for long. Sparta is one of the only ancient cities I can remember even having a specific police and that was because its slaves outnumbered its citizens five to one or so.

Re:Two words:

[WilliamSChips]

Well, that would explain the Cold War.

Re:Two words:

[stinerman]

I was speaking to my beliefs, not the law (yes, I was being serious).

I believe in Sweden it is illegal to use corporal punishment on children, but that may be an urban myth. IMHO, it should be the same here.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to plan that. You're posting on Slashdot, right?

Re:Two words:

[Windowser]

Here in Canada, it is allowed by law to use "minor corrective force of a transitory and trifling nature" : http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2004/01/30/spanking04 0130.html

Re:Two words:

[nomadic]

I don't know where you are, but in Texas ..

I'd guess most places it's the same. But people with sloppy logical reasoning skills have more fun just making vague complaints about "political correctness" without actually informing themselves as to the law.

Re:Two words:

[dreamchaser]

I'll bet that's because Romans weren't afraid to spank their kids when they got out of line...

Re:Two words:

[ryanov]

That's not true.

Sending a kid that won't eat the dinner he's been cooked to sleep with no food is not a form of abuse. What are you supposed to do, make him what he wants? My parents never did and I came out fine. If he's hungry, he'll eat what he's been cooked.

Re:Two words:

[LordKazan]

Maybe if you took a really healthy dump and got rid of that hippie liberal crap, you'd realize this.

I love this part, this is the part in which you show that you don't know what you're talking about because you have to resort to argumentum ad hominem.

Re:Two words:

[inca34]

Why were you AC? I don't read AC unless it's modded up. And when I get to mod up, I don't read AC posts.

Re:Two words:

[BakaHoushi]

Well, I was trying to hint at that spanking COULD be seen as abuse by some. Not sane people, mind you, but some nonetheless. I actually seem to remember him getting spanked sometimes, but not a whole lot.

Re:Two words:

[DeadChobi]

Actually, if you read the research, the only way you'll really teach a child to prefer one action over the other is if you reward them somehow for performing the preferred action. Beating them doesn't give them any information about what to do, only what not to do. It may or may not be effective for behavior correction depending on how the child reacts. By contrast, positive reinforcement is effective simply because people like to be rewarded as a general rule.

Re:Two words:

[ryanov]

Can it with the "hippie liberal" epithets. I'm a liberal and I don't agree with the person you're arguing against. Calling names is a waste of time.

Re:Two words:

[Belial6]

I believe that physical abuse by the police department should be used only as a last resort when all other routes have failed, or when violence is used against them.

The only reason that force is not required EVERY time is that the people the police are dealing with know that the police can and will use force if you don't comply. We know this because the police have used force, and the courts have regularly ruled that this is acceptable. How many people do you think would pull over for a cop if they were limited to what the 'spanking is assault' crowd want parents limited to? How many people do you think would pull over if the worst the law had to dish out was a REQUEST that you do what they say? The debate isn't whether violence should be use all the time or not. The debate is whether violence should ever be used.

Ancient Rome

I was referring to a modern city, and really one in the US, but lets talk about Rome. I can't claim to be an expert on Rome, so I will ask you. What did a Roman family do when a group of ruffians broke into their home and proceeded to take all of their gold and rape the women? How did they stop this behavior without violence on their part, or on their behalf?

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

If I recall, the kids in his books were fucked up because what the parents did was far worse...

Re:Two words:

[EvanED]

Um, I've had one now for ~2 years, and they were around long before that. I was fairly late to getting a cell phone...

Re:Two words:

[RobertLTux]

and in a significant number of kids giving them a Mountain Dew and OJ "cocktail" on a regular basis will work just as well (trick does not work in Canada)

Re:Two words:

[ColaMan]

Fascinating.

A few comments on the differences between here and there -

She can make calls from anywhere in the US, to anywhere in the US, for no additional charge.
Ditto here, sort of. That is, mobile to landline calls cost the same anywhere in Australia.
 
...we get a hugely flexible system. A GSM phone from the UK may operate in Greece, but not for the same price as if you were sitting in London.
True, but that's more of an inter-country thing there and it actually showcases the flexibility of the GSM network in general. Do your phones play nicely with other countries when you're overseas?

We're crippled somewhat in Australia due to low population density and - well , low population in general. I drive on a weekly basis a trip that's 900km long one way (9 hours drive at the speed limit) - there would perhaps be 20,000 people , tops , that live along that route. Yet I can get coverage for 90% of the trip along it. That kind of coverage, with our kind of sparse population costs money.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that spanking, bed without dinner, or walking home no longer acceptable forms of punishment? Because it's barbaric! Why should be able to beat your kid just because you are bigger? Because that is only thing that really allows you to do it, isn't it? I'm 6'3", 250 lbs, and if you tried to spank me when you thought my behaviour was unacceptable, I would beat the shit out of you! Just because a kid can't punch your face in (like you deserve), doesn't give you a right to torture them.

I have a 2-year-old, and I am proud to say that I have never so much as raised my voice at him, and he has turned out fine. Of course it's more difficult to raise a kid this way, but nobody parenting was easy.

For those of you who agree with any of this, this might be of interest: http://takingchildrenseriously.com/.

Re:Two words:

[revengebomber]

Because teenagers know that a $1000 porno bill would get them kicked out of the house.

Re:Two words:

[lessthan]

So basically damned if you do, damned if you don't? IANAP, but I imagine "too much" and "too little" to be fairly subjective, depending on the kid, the parent, the environment, the kid's companions, and numerous other factors. How can a human being make perfect choices? Becoming a parent doesn't open you to omniscience or even good advice. I've seen a sig around here that I've found pretty insightful. "You make good decisions based on experience. You get experience from making bad decisions." Punishment to the way to return to the balance after indulging your kid too often. If you are on a balance beam and wobbling to the right, then the only way not to fall (fail) is lean left.

Re:Two words:

[cadeon]

What are people on slashdot doing, commenting about parenting? It's not like any of us here have (or ever will have) the requisite experience.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

they punished him by taking away possessions

That's not real punishment. Like you said, a boot or belt to their backsides.

Re:Two words:

[lordmatthias215]

hmm, last time I checked, patting a kid on the butt isn't really abuse- I got spanked a few times in my day, but looking back, they didn't even really hurt- it was more the shame of it than anything else. And if you think missing a single meal for misbehavior is reprehensible, take a trip to Africa. I know that example is overused, but seriously- the kid could quite possibly use a few less calories anyway, if obesity is as big an epidemic as the media says. As for kicking your kid out of the car, my parents never did that to me, but at the same time my mom walked home by herself every day from elementary school through high school, without a key to get into the house, and she's not exactly running up therapy costs because of it. Be an adult and punish your children when they go astray. If you're a good parent, you'll know the difference between being a friend and being a parent.

I'm a teenager living in my parent's house, and I can honestly tell you I'm glad they spanked me and grounded me and chewed me out when I was younger, because it taught me not to give them a reason to punish me further on in life. I'm sick of parents who let their kids (my friends) do whatever they want because they're more concerned with being the child's friend than being their parent. Sure, you can be friends with your kids, but you still have to be an authority figure and prepare them for the real world, where they can't do whatever they want without repercussions. Be there to talk to them, laugh with them, and help them with problems, but also be there to slap their hands when the reach for the cookie jar out of turn. If you're a good parent, you'll know how to balance friendship and authority.

That being said, you obviously need to be responsible in your punishments. Spank your child, but don't beat the crap out of them with a wooden switch. Ground them from something they hold dear, but not from something they need- monitor computer use so it's only for homework, or limit their cell phone to family numbers and 911. Send them to bed without supper, but make them a decent breakfast the next day, and talk things over with them as they eat (this an especially good way to show you've forgiven them and make amends). Kick them out of the car on the way home from school, but not a long way from home. Don't take your anger out on them- you want to teach them, not torture them. If you're a good parent, you'll know the difference.

Re:Two words:

[TriezGamer]

You remember Sparta? Jesus, how old are you...?

Re:Two words:

[Mitsugi]

Here's a better link: Beat your kid. ;)

Re:Two words:

[lessthan]

While name-calling does hurt people's feelings and tends to muck up arguments because everyone becomes too defensive to argue about anything other than whose mom did what with who, what did him calling you a hippy liberal have to do his arguement? m*a=f, you hippy liberal!! doesn't disprove anything.

Re:Two words:

[Anarchysoft]

Pain is nature's teacher, and using pain to discipline children is entirely natural. 'Teaching' kids through punishment ignores the real reason why they should do good and makes it about avoiding the wrath of whover has more power. It's a 'might makes right' lesson that's dehumanizing and disrespectful to a child (or any human being.) A culture of punishment is a culture of oppression that favors cowards and bullies.

Re:Two words:

[Mspangler]

"Then your kid will yell child abuse to the local Children Protective Services and have you arrested."

YMMV of course, but my stepdaughter tried that one on me. The CPS person came out, investigated, took the girl outside and chewed her ass out for five minutes. End of that incident. Except for the two months of grounding.

Don't panic if CPS calls. They know the difference between a real abuse and a brat trying to get their way.

Re:Two words:

[ohsoot]

So the 'problem kids' were spanked and most of them ended up dead or in jail. Perhaps another form of punishment should be pursued that may yield a higher success rate?

Re:Two words:

[penguinoid]

My parents did the get out of the car and walk thing (not necessarily all the way home) whenever me or my two brothers were too troublesome in the car. Often just a few blocks, and she'd follow in the car to pick us up when we calmed down a bit.

Now I usually go for a walk when I'm feeling frustrated or angry. Better than the other "solutions" for that.

Cheers,
penguinoid

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Works great for instilling racism, sexism, any other irrational hatred. And that's how you know it's not a proper parenting technique.

"You were nice to a black kid at school? Spanking."
"You think mom should be able to vote? Spanking."
"You think Mac is better than Windows? Spanking."

Sounds good to me. Very biblical and the like... God giving people hemorrhoids for disobeying, instructing his flock that if a woman grabs a man by the balls she should lose her hand, and Job, poor Job... what the hell?

I'm not saying it's never right to spank a child (hell, why spank? Get one of those dog collars with the electric shock remote control), but almost every instance it's better to teach the child than punish them. And you should always use your palm to spank. Paddles are for s&m. Your palm allows you to feel how hard you're spanking.

Just because you were spanked does not mean it was right or that it was the only or proper way to handle your behavior.

Re:Two words:

[The One and Only]

I think you misspelled "SPARTAAAAAAAAAA!".

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easier for a parent to blame the kids or just drug them than do something about their bad parenting.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but sometimes "disappointment" just doesn't cut it. Most of my friends have kids, but most of the ones that do corners and time outs have little demons because their kids realize that all that they get when they miss behave is a talking to. I say most because it does seem to work on a few of them just not many. I actually asked one of my friends kids (15 yrs old btw) why they did the things they did (stuff like telling their father and mother to shut up). The kid actually told me "Because nothing will ever come of it. All they are going to do is take away my TV or try to ground me". Corners and Disappointment will work great for you if your kid cares. In my friends case he just can't understand why his punishment doesn't seem to work. Hell if it wasn't for a spanking every now and then from my parents I wouldn't have a good job, Own my house or own my new cars at 25 years old. I'm not saying beat the crap out of your kids but a smack on the butt can set a child right faster than telling them to go sit in that chair or in that corner. I can also depend on why the kid is misbehaving. Do they just want mom and dads attention or are they just doing it for fun. (Sorry for any misspellings or grammar problems. I got stuck going into work to fix a problem and just got out so I'm a little tired)

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

Yeah. We wouldn't want to give them the idea that when they reach adulthood, bad behavior will result in physical threatening.

Re:Two words:

[JimBobJoe]

Do your phones play nicely with other countries when you're overseas?

Not really. Overseas roaming is an enormous cost center.

According to an Economist article from several weeks ago, the pricing system in the US does encourage more mobile phone use. On average, the average American cell phone account is used about 1000 minutes/month whereas everyone else in the world talks about 200 minutes/month.

Re:Two words:

[heffeque]

Meanwhile in Japan they're sending emails with unlimited length instead of 160 character messages. Great! :-(

Re:Two words:

[jellomizer]

Exactly I don't know why more parents don't understand this concept.
At this age the kids don't understand money. $1000 while seems like a lot to them doesn't realize how many important things in life that it can afford you.
A lot of people can live on $1000 a month. You can talk to them until they are blue in the face but they will never get it until they start living on their own and seeing that money is more important then just getting things they like.
So getting rid of the phone is probably the best punishment for them. Especially with the fact they they use it so much that they will suffer without it. They will learn that there are other ways to survive other then texting your friends... Like actually calling them and talking to them, Instant messaging...
If I got a bill like that I would say you cannot have a phone anymore until you can get a job and pay for one yourself.

I see comments like switching plans and the rest. But that isn't the good solution the right solution is to get rid of the phone. I get angry when ever I see the phone commercial where the mother is working a second job to afford the kids use for the phone, and the kids just blankly uncaringly accept their mother is working a degrading job just so they can use the phone as much as they want. Just take away the damn phone cancel the service until the kids can get a job and get their own phone. If they make a $1000 bill then it sucks to be them. It is tough but sometimes kids need to learn the hard way.

Re:Two words:

[dedazo]

you shouldn't have to resort to abusing them

Society is getting to the point where the desperate PC desire for everyone to be "equal" is trickling down to children as well. Let me tell you something: children are not equal. They are not "little people". They are blabbering semi-functional idiot savants that require a lot of discipline and guidance to be able to grow up and function in society. That has been true since humans first started breeding. They are also beautiful and innocent. That doesn't mean they should be given drugs or sent off to therapy because fucked up parents can't be bothered to assume the responsibility of educating their own offspring, or because some stupid law or social perception makes it "bad" to plant a big loud one in their rear because they broke the den window after being told ten times to go play baseball somewhere else.

You "new age" touchy-feely "send Jimmy to the shrink so I don't have to abuse him" people make me sick. You think your kids are so better off than everyone else's and you're damaging more than you could ever know. Humanity has been raising children for thousands of years, and we've done good. Discipline is not abuse, no matter how much you'd like that to be the case. Learn to tell the difference between the two, or shut the fuck up.

Re:Two words:

[micknz]

They've just recently passed a law here in New Zealand banning parents smacking their kids. Honestly, what the hell?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=1 501165&objectid=10440080

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

As soon as you resort to smacking, spanking, or hitting in any way, you've signaled your failure as a parent.

According to whom Doctor Spock? You? What makes you the expert? Where's the Ten Commandments of parenting given from on high that works in every possible situation? You're incredibly naive.

Re:Two words:

[LordKazan]

those who commit argumentum ad hominem, or any other logical fallacy, as held as having lost no matter what the merits of his argument. If he would like to restate his argument without resorting to insults I will gladly dissect it and destroy it point by point (a rather trivial matter given what he's shown us of his "argument already")

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

"You're about the only person here who's not a real retard."-- I doubt someone who actually works with children and professes enough "insight" to claim only 3% of ADD children require treatment with Ritalin would stoop to using such an insensitive and callous term as "retard" so casually. They would typically have developed significant understanding and compassion as a result of dealing on a daily basis with the human consequences of Downs Syndrome. If not, perhaps they're in the wrong business.

Re:Two words:

[rossz]

Bullshit! Beating your kids is most definitely not mainstream. Even light spankings are heavily frowned upon. Either you aren't an American, which means you don't have a fucking clue, or you grew up in one seriously fucked up home.

Re:Two words:

[numbski]

What, the part where he bluntly tells you the truth?

Re:Two words:

[linuxrocks123]

> Humanity has been raising children for thousands of years, and we've done good.

Obviously not. If humanity had done /well/ raising children, you wouldn't be complaining about the state of humanity today with regard to parenting. :p

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

Do you honestly believe that most people choose to be good because it's morally correct? If that were the case, there would be no need for social contracts, police forces, and militaries. We have rules of law and enforcers precisely because the natural tendency of people is to do bad things. Why do you think most Christians worship? Is it because they really love God and their fellow human beings? Or is it because they want everlasting bliss as a reward for good behavior? Or is it because they fear burning in the pit of hell for being bad? To answer that, just watch how most of them behave. I don't mean to isolate Christianity as exceptional in this regard. Most people need a cosmic daddy to tell them what's right and wrong, and what the consequences are because they are incapable or unwilling to do the difficult thinking for themselves.

The plain and simple fact is, most people are plain and simple. They don't philosophize. They react. If they know they can get away with something, they'll do it. This is as true of adults as it is of children. The raising of children is not so much to instill an understanding of right and wrong, but rather to learn the consequences of bad behavior. If they end up actually doing deep thinking about morality, great. But don't hold your breath.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

He said that most of the kids who were spanked turn out perfectly fine, but a few didn't respond and most of these ended up dead or in jail. Read the fucking post before you reply.

Re:Two words:

[saforrest]

A talk show host was talking last night about how today's politically correct society...

What! A talk show host? Spreading vapid FUD about political correctness? Never!

Re:Two words:

[Anarchysoft]

We have rules of law and enforcers precisely because the natural tendency of people is to do bad things....Most people need a cosmic daddy to tell them what's right and wrong, and what the consequences are because they are incapable or unwilling to do the difficult thinking for themselves.... If they know they can get away with something, they'll do it. I'm sorry, but that cynical, pessimistic view (which I don't blame you for) of human nature is very much what's wrong with modern society. Believe it or not, humans are not 'naturally' evil and treating them like they are creates dysfunction.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

So your parents never did this one to you? All it is that they make you get out of the car, and then they drive just around the block and pick you up on the way through. The kid doesn't know that that's going to happen, and if you have to do it twice just follow the child discretely all the way home..

Re:Two words:

[eonlabs]

I feel that it's not as cut and dry as that.
If a kid is about to put their hand on a hot stove, smacking the hand reinforces
the idea that the kid is about to burn themselves without permanently scarring the
child.

Beating a child is another thing all together.

There are times when parents should be able to strike their child as a form of
discipline. There are more times when parents who don't get it abuse that and
make it so the rest of society is shocked at the idea of using any form of
physical contact to stop a child from misbehaving.

In the same breath, I think that if you can, physical discipline should be avoided,
but it should be able to be used when the actions the child is planning to take
would result in injury far beyond the physical discipline, whether to the kid or
to someone else.

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

Q: But what if your child grows up to be Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Al Capone, or Jim Jones?

A: Stop seeing these people as "just plain evil", and start looking for solutions to their problems. Oh, and you were a bad parent.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they create something like Parent Protective Services? for childs abusing their parents

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

Right, because in the beginning, people lived in harmony with each other and with nature. No one took advantage of anyone, because then knew it was bad, bad, bad. Where did we go wrong and start the beating, stealing, and killing?

Re:Two words:

[rhinokitty]

You beat your kids, don't you?

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

Because it's barbaric!

Then, I take it, you are against officers of the law laying hands on anyone, including child molesters, rapists, and murderers. You should probably be opposed to prisons as well, because we all know what goes on in there. The death penalty is, of course, out of the question. If someone breaks into your home, steals your television, and rapes your significant other, you should just stand by because to physically harm them would be ... what was that word again, oh yeah ... barbaric. Where do you live again?

Re:Two words:

[Korin43]

Verizon doesn't offer it. (Which is why I will be using T-Mobile)

Re:Two words:

[c_forq]

I don't know, I use the term retard very loosely, but never regarding the mentally handicapped. I think in many areas the word retard has evolved to be interchangeable with stupid (kind of like how dumb used to mean mute but is no longer interpreted as such). In my area retard is no more offensive than dumb, stupid, or idiot. Of course context is key, if used in conjunction with the Special Olympics, or something similar, everyone will react like you just confessed to being a Nazi.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, bitter are we?

Re:Two words:

[WannaBeGeekGirl]

I work with youth. Ritalin is a bad start for the answer. Less then 3% of the "ADD" youth I worked with need Ritalin.
I'm so relieved to see your post, and to see that its modded up as insightful in this discussion that is a tangent, but relevant to the discussion of the original topic.

I am an advocate for breaking down stigmas and stereotypes about mental health. There are too many misconceptions that Ritalin is an easy answer for ADD. (For clarity, ADD was renamed and so some people are using the term ADHD-Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.) There are too many misconceptions about how many youth have clinical ADD. Its easier to give kids drugs or draw some sort of line and say this is how you parent, but easy isn't necessarily right for everyone.

I had a really great source to cite that would have backed up your post that has unfortunately gone offline in the last month. It contained documents about how there were preschools and private schools in California several years ago that required kids to be on Ritalin and similar drugs to get in. Mental health and youth advocacy groups lobbied and worked with the CA legislature to pass public policy to help end this kind of extreme {I'm at a loss of what to call this}. I can provide a link to CHADD's public policy page which shows some more localized efforts. I'm also going to post the information about ADHD/ADD from NIMH because I think its very comprehensive about a misunderstood disorder. The best way to treat ignorance is with education.

My sister is an ADA for juvenile defenders in a large metropolitan area, her work backs up your statements too. Thanks for posting advocacy and tolerance!

Re:Two words:

[wizzahd]

don't you mean .003c?

Re:Two words:

[Canordis]

Excuse me, but are you comparing misbehaving children to murderers, rapists and child molesters? Please report to your nearest reproductive health clinic for a swift and thorough removal of your ability to reproduce. Thank you.

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

Not at all. I'm comparing using force on children with using force on adults. Why is one acceptable, and the other not acceptable?

Re:Two words:

[consonant]

Not really. If he were using some form of PTI (Predictive Text Input) (like T9), it would have to be (on a Nokia 6680 with T9):

66*06673074663

You're welcome :)

Re:Two words:

[billcopc]

Simple solution: don't have kids.

If raising kids is a legal nightmare, then just skip the exercise altogether. Or move to a country that doesn't reek of political over-correctness. Or just kill the ungrateful little spawns, plead guilty, get out after 3 years of exemplary conduct and inspire millions of parents with your survival story to do the same.

Either way I don't care. If parents can't discipline their own kids, eventually someone else will, someone who is not bound by the rules of child abuse: another child. That's right, kids who don't learn the value of respect will become each other's enemies. Isn't that what we all want, more youth violence ? 'Course it is, it's good for the ratings.

Re:Two words:

[ranton]

When I was a child nothing was worse than my parents being disappointed in me. Well, except for getting spanked that is. I probably only got spanked about 4-5 times my entire childhood, but the knowledge that it could happen often stopped me from doing something I knew would require it.

If your kids are so scared of disappointing their parents, then they have a whole slew of problems far more severe than a tanned ass. If they are hurt more by your disappointment than by physical pain I fear for their mental health.

My fiance and I will not start trying for children for about a year, so I cannot speak from experience other than from talks with other parents and psychologists. But I sure hope that my children shed more tears from being spanked than tears from fears of disappointing me. I hope I am never that consistently controlling or demanding of my children.

--

Re:Two words:

[ThePengwin]

Im on prepaid, and thanks to 1cent texts i use well over 20 bucks a month :D Postpaid is for losers

Re:Two words:

[watchingeyes]

Huh? What does that have to do with anything? I don't get what you're trying to say...

Re:Two words:

[stinerman]

What you are describing is an imminent danger situation. Obviously that is a different story. I don't believe you can sue someone for battery if they stop you from walking in front of a car. Similarly, if someone is giving you CPR or in any way trying to help you if you are injured, you can't sue them for battery.

After writing my comment I read up on the laws regarding corporal punishment around the world. The UK law is reasonable and I could probably agree to that. From wikipedia:

An amendment to the Children Act 2004 to ban smacking by parents was defeated by 424 votes to 75 in the House of Commons; however, an amendment to ban parents from smacking their children hard enough to leave a mark was accepted by 284 votes to 208, and came into force in January 2005.

Re:Two words:

[ranton]

Believe it or not, humans are not 'naturally' evil

That is very true. Human are "naturally" animalistic. The problem is that most of those animalistic tendencies are considered evil by our current moral codes. That is why it is easy for someone to believe that humans are inherently evil. Luckily our society has evolved to a point where many people grow up to be honorable and decent people in spite of our "natural" state.

--

Re:Two words:

[MBGMorden]

Yeah. It depends on the severity. I was spanked by my parents when I was young, and I see no problem with it. But it was always within reason. My mother's mother on the other hand, used a oar/boat paddle to spank my mother with (turned on the narrow end if it was a bad offense). That's what I would call abuse (though in that day and age it wasn't seen as such).

Re:Two words:

[BLQWME]

Where to start? Ok... For the SMACKTARDS in the group who paint with a really big brush and come out against corporal punishment... SHUT THE FUCK UP and have some kids of your own. Then, while they are growing, don't you dare discipline them once. That way, when they come into the real world, those of us that still have manners can kick the shit out of them for you when they exhibit their greedy and completely selfish ways. The piece of shit parents who can't say "No" and have no involvement in their child's lives and have been cranking out these whiny little bastards should have to pay all the dues for what their darling little brats have done and will do in the future. Thank you for fucking up this world and giving birth to future politicians and corporate executives.

You ashholes that don't have kids have no rights coming in to a board and stumping about minor corrective discipline when you don't have a clue about the subject! But wait, this is Slashdot... nevermind :(

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

What are you on about? Let's try a different approach. Consider this scenario: Little Johnny aged 10 grabs some guns, enters a mall or school, and starts shooting people randomly. The police show up. Do they

(a) give little Johnny a time-out?
(b) give little Johnny a lecture about how to behave in public?
(c) blow little Johnny away?

Re:Two words:

[Bent Mind]

Anyone that believes spanking is inherently wrong, and yet supports having a police department is simply a hypocrite. I believe that physical abuse by the police department should be used only as a last resort when all other routes have failed, or when violence is used against them. Funny, that is the same view I have when it comes to disciplining children.

When a city successfully runs with no law enforcement, I will consider reevaluating this stance. Ancient Rome. The only thing approaching a police force was the military and very few active-duty milites stayed in Rome for long. I am not a historian. However, I do enjoy watching the history channel. They have a show called Cities of the Underworld. A recent episode covered Rome. One of the digs was of a fire house from the time of the first Roman emperor. They talked about how the city was lawless when he came to power. One of the first things he did was to establish fire and police departments. So I don't think that Rome is a good example of a city without police.

Re:Two words:

[Technician]

Prepaid phone

or;

NO DATA

We heard about this problem so when the time came to issue a cell to a teen, we specified no data plans of any kind. We do not want the phone to be a blank check. The demo games play a half level and die, the ring tone selection is limited to the tones on the phone, the Cingular mall does not connect. IM's don't. I thought it was pretty cheezy on Cingular's part to blurr the seperation of DL and local content. Crusing the ring tones would have incurred data charges without warning. The ah-hah moment was the connection error. This has worked well for us in keeping the cost in line. The cavot is any plan change defaults data service on. Be sure to ask if it is off on all phones every time. We had a data charge for ringtones once. We got it reversed when we pointed out we specified no data charges or service in our plan.

Re:Two words:

[fractoid]

You've never been hungry, have you? Like, really hungry, not just I-missed-lunch peckish?

Regardless, generally, unless a kid has genuine mental problems, a firm-but-fair approach works. A child is like any other half-wild animal; establish authority in a non-threatening way and from there it's smooth sailing. In fact with kids it's even easier - you can talk to them, and they're a helluva lot smarter than a dog.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, the largest and most 'legitimate' nations of the world use violence as a means to solve their problems. Violence works. If it's OK for civilized nations to send soldiers to kill eachother, parents should at least have the right to beat their own children.

Re:Two words:

[misanthrope101]

You know what? As a kid, if I did something stupid, my parents spanked me. Guess what? I usually didn't do the same stupid thing twice.

Not all of us learned the same lessons. I learned to lie better, to plan better, and I knew about plausible deniability long before I knew the term. From as early as I remember, I felt that I was getting in trouble for getting caught. This lesson was not lost upon me.

Re:Two words:

[Canordis]

I could make the point that children are not adults, but I'm not going to.

Instead I'm going to point out it's not the same thing. In fact, no modern democracy uses force on criminals the same way you're advocating using on children; criminals aren't beaten with sticks as punishment, or slapped on the wrist when they steal. Force (at least when the law enforcement institutions work) is used to apprehend criminals, not as punishment; police forces don't exist to punish, but rather to make sure criminals are apprehended so they can be punished, removed from society for society's safety, and/or rehabilitated. Ideally for them, criminals would give themselves up and walk into precincts handcuffed... unfortunately they don't, which is where truncheons and guns come in.

I'm all for using force to keep children from hurting others and themselves, but using it as punishment is barbaric; the fact is, we don't use the cane or torture devices on criminals in prisons - why would we do the smaller-scale equivalent on children for much lesser infractions?

Besides, the primary lesson corporal punishment teaches is "I'm bigger than you, so I get to tell you what to do." It raises bullies, and children educated primarily through punishment, corporal punishment in particular, will stop being behaved as soon as their parents aren't around to beat the shit out of them any more.

Re:Two words:

[Tsagadai]

Oh come on now, next we will have people coming out and saying "my folks hit me and it never did me any harm". The only people who ever say that usually follow up with raving about why they can't hit their kids or someone elses or how police should beat people to a pulp. I think the harm was done, whoever takes the worked-out-alright-for-me phrase is usually a raving loon. Leave the room slowly and keep both eyes on them lest they see your fear.

Re:Two words:

[Mr2001]

I'm afraid every single argument put forward by the "it's all child abuse" PC crowd pretty much falls flat by the simple reasoning that their softly-softly approach doesn't work. Sorry, but there really isn't any evidence for that. Kids who haven't been beaten can still learn respect for others.

This is abundantly clear from the changes in school discipline in places like the UK as teachers and then parents systematically had their rights to physically discipline badly behaved children eroded. No more than it's clear that the dwindling number of high seas pirates has caused global warming. Correlation is not causation.

But in reality, I'd rather have a world where kids got a clip round the ear occasionally and had a little respect for the rules and their elders than today's PC world, where they're all little angels, laying a finger on them is called child abuse, and I hear nine-year-olds who've just scratched right down the side of my neighbour's new car doing hundreds of pounds of damage telling him point-blank that it's his problem because "I can't commit a crime, I'm only 9!". If his parents can't think of a way to discipline him that doesn't involve physical violence, they have no business raising kids. I know in "today's PC world", people hate being told that they're incompetent parents, but sometimes it's true.

And you can lose that "they're all little angels" strawman. No one's saying that. But if beatings were an acceptable and effective punishment for misbehavior, we wouldn't need all these jails; we'd just hit criminals with a 2x4 until their mean streak were reduced to a pool on the floor, and then they'd never commit a crime again because they'd be too afraid of more beatings, right? Shame that doesn't actually work in the real world.

Re:Two words:

[Tsagadai]

Yes I do believe cities can run without law enforcement. I don't believe alot of US cities could but hey. I've lived in area's where severe weather caused even the police to leave town. Did anarchy take over and everyone run amok? A few did but that happens even with police unless you live under a rock. Violence from authority figures is always bad. Just like parents if police need to resort to violence they have already failed long ago.

Re:Two words:

[eonlabs]

Nice, never heard of that one before.
I definitly agree with that.

Re:Two words:

[Tsagadai]

You never had a spine did you. If anyone ever hit me, which happened a fair bit at school because I was a bad kid, the last thing I would ever do was obey them. On your same highlighted Pavlovian conditioning most kids know when they have done something wrong so you ask them to come to you. That's mistake one, the second mistake is if you ask them to trust you. Most kids are smart enough to run away before being hit if you use your authority to make a child come to you then hit them what does that tell them? As I said in opening if you had the balls you wouldn't walk the line out of fear of reprisals but out of a sense of pride or a genuine desire to do the right thing. That can't be taught by hitting someone all you get from that sort of action is a cowardly follower.

Re:Two words:

[revengebomber]

He was saying that a $1000 phone bill doesn't warrant taking away a phone, just because it may be used for future texting. He likened it to a computer, because the computer may be used for looking at porn. I mentioned that the teenager in question had not racked up a $1000 bill on porn. Comprende?

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

the primary lesson corporal punishment teaches is "I'm bigger than you, so I get to tell you what to do."

How is that different from, "I have a gun, and you don't, so I get to tell you what to do", or "We can throw you in jail, so we get to tell you what to do"? That is the reality of adulthood. And I'm pretty sure that those are the reasons that most adults don't run amok doing whatever they want. Take copyright infringement, for instance. Issues of morality aside, it is currently illegal in the U.S. for someone to distribute copyrighted materials if they don't own the copyright. But, as regular readers of /. know, many people persist in doing it. Now, why is that? Is it because they don't know it's illegal? Or is it because the odds are in favor of them getting away with it?

police forces don't exist to punish, but rather to make sure criminals are apprehended so they can be punished

And how are they punished? Supposing fines don't work and the person persists in stealing, burning buildings down, or whatever --- they end up in jail, where the real barbarity begins. If a child commits these acts, their fate is much the same. Society apparently has no problem with locking people up in cages to be abused. You can call it punishment, or rehabilitation, or whatever. They still end up abused.

Re:Two words:

[watchingeyes]

Actually, that was me (Slashdot does show who posts which comments you know...), and you completely twisted what I was saying. Do you have a blind-spot in your eye that caused you to miss the 3 solutions to the problem that could be used instead of taking away the phone that I posted?

My point was that the original poster who said "no more phone" sounds like one of those morons who wants to shut down Myspace instead of teaching their kids how to not get stalked by predators online. I never said they "may use it for texting in the future" (reading comprehension isn't one of your strong suits is it?), I said the parents could take quick and easy action to PREVENT it without taking away the phone.

Comprende?

Re:Two words:

[afaik_ianal]

The first two might stop a $1000 bill from coming in, but I think we're missing the point. The third won't prevent the $1000. You might think a 17 year old girl has the maturity to control her mobile phone use, wouldn't you? Consider this then:

This girl sent nearly 7000 messages in a month. That's over 200 per day. She was sending an average of about one message every 5 minutes, every waking hour... 7 days a week... for a month.

That's not healthy. Do you still think this girl would have the maturity to cover her own bill? Surely her parents must've noticed something was wrong.

Re:Two words:

[stephanruby]

"In the US, when mobile phones were first implemented, one of two choices could be made: either mobiles could be given a distinctive prefix (area code) of their own, or they could be integrated into the local phone systems. "

You're forgetting option #3, allow people to chose for themselves, and allow for both schemes to be implemented. That's what the UK did actually, not all mobile phones in the UK have a special prefix and a surcharge when you call them. And here in the US, we already have area codes with surcharges on them for sex hot-lines and astrology hot-lines -- so it's not like this would have been a novel concept for us.

"Americans were Not Into the idea of paying to call someone locally."

Actually, I don't remember anyone having asked our opinions. This was a decision made by politicians, for the good of the people. Politicians like to do that, they like to take away our individual choices -- in order to protect us from ourselves. Personally, I would have loved to have access to both kinds of cell plans. I could have had one cheap cell phone number with a 900 area code, that I could given out to anybody, and that number I would have kept turned on all the time. And I could have had a second cell phone number, that wouldn't cost anything to call, that I'd give out only to the people I really wanted to talk to, but I'd have kept turned off when I went to sleep.

"With any major carrier, virtually all plans provide no-roaming service across the country."

And with minor low-cost cell carriers (like http://metropcs.com), assuming you're lucky enough to have them in your area, they give you (truly) unlimited phone calls (both in-network and outside of the network), unlimited web access, and unlimited texting -- for something like $64 a month (but you have third party roaming charges once you get out of their area).

"This is in large measure what makes the system so palatable to Americans"

Palatable? We were five to ten years behind our European counterparts in terms of cell phones becoming palatable for us American. Granted there are other factors that may have affected this late adoption, but whatever this may have cost us in terms of late adoption and loss of flexibility -- I don't think it was worth it.

Re:Two words:

[Kierthos]

Right. Because disobeying my parents would have just worked so well.

The problem is, these days, parents are so afraid of being labeled as bad parents or having their children taken away, that they're afraid of disciplining their child. And, like I said before, there is a helluva lot of difference between "spank your child" and "beat your child".

I do not countenance child abuse. But I also do not countenance letting little Knothead roam free, doing whatever the fuck he wants, with no punishments or consequences to his actions. It's REAL GODDAMN SIMPLE. Child fucks up, child gets punished. And if that means take away their cell phone/text-messager/whatever, ground them, remove other priveleges, or if necessary, spank them, I'm cool with that. Because maybe then, the child will learn.

And they damn sure would pay for any damages they caused or any bills they racked up.

Re:Two words:

[lemnik]

How about:

http://www.mxit.co.za/wap

Re:Two words:

[Timbotronic]

Actually, paying for "minutes" is a lot more accurate than what they call a "cap" here. I'm on a $49 per month "cap" with Vodafone that can easily cost more than $49 if I make enough calls or texts. The word "cap" implies a ceiling on cost but it's actually just a discount for agreeing to pay a minimum amount per month.

IMHO the ACCC should ban the use of the term "cap" on any service that can cost more than the amount stated.

Re:Two words:

[PuercoPop]

Raising kids .... How Do I eat those :D

Re:Two words:

[Anonamused Cow-herd]

It is a simple psychological tool, called the stick. Sometimes the stick works with one kid, and sometimes only the carrot works.

As I worked extensively on a thesis that covered long-term results of physical discipline in American households, I can tell you with near-perfect statistical authority that "the stick" is a really bad idea. Not only does it not work in the short term (it turns out children are much more likely to subvert a parent's will when spanked), but in the long term, people who were spanked are much more likely to exhibit a wide variety of behaviors that we don't like.

For example, it turns out that people who are spanked are much more likely to: commit aggressive felonies, including sexual aggression and rape, be involved in domestic violence, develop a number of anxiety-related disorders, and detach from their parents at a young age (e.g., hate their parents). You can read about some of the effects here.

Most often, people who spank are really just manifesting their own rage, and inability to control it. They rationalize it with stupid "common knowledge" about how it's good for the kid, or he/she "had it coming." Of course, the truth is that often, these parents would rather scare their kids senseless than deal with the real problems of raising children. To each his own I guess.

Re:Two words:

[zoney_ie]

Oh come on. And magically you win the argument just because the last part of his resorted to ad-hominem? Somehow your defence does not seem particularly credible when you focus merely on the insults of the last sentence, rather than the coherent point made previous to it.

Re:Two words:

[blackicye]

Its not just children, many adults need to be physically threatened before they will conform or behave.

Otherwise the military and law enforcement would just need megaphones and bags of candy. As evidenced by modern military and police actions, laws, punishment, some people need to have the shit beaten out of them and even killed before they and their peers will behave.

If physical force has to be used to keep adults (who definately know better) in line, how is it even remotely possible to keep some kids in line without force or threat of physical force.

Re:Two words:

[olman]

Ha. I'm 100% sure you could find lawsuits due to broken ribs and/or failed CPR.

You can sue franchises for making food because you're fat.

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

Offcourse it is. Using physical pain as punishment is inacceptable towards *anyone*. We don't do that to adults, I don't see how it should be different for kids.

Not just Sweden. Most of Europe. Certainly Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Germany .... (quite possibly exceptions for the UK and southern europe which is much more conservative)

It's nothing new either, been this way since atleast the 70ies, possibly longer. (I wouldn't know, I'm not older...)

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

Law-enforcement does not use pain as a method of punishment.

They use withdrawal of priviledges or property, or in extreme cases removal of personal freedoms (prison).

Now, they may use physical force, even the kind that causes you pain, in order to force you to comply with their demands.

Put differently, a police-officer *can* use physical force against you to force you to follow orders.

He can not (though I'm aware that some parts of the US police-force seems unaware of this) use force against someone who is under control and poses no threat in order to punish them.

There is a difference between, for example, physically carrying a 8-year-old to bed -- because he refuses to come peacefully on the one hand, and on the other hand intentionally inflicting pain on him as a form of punishment.

Fact is, parents hold *ALL* the cards. If they're unable to make their child understand that something is unacceptable without resorting to physical abuse, I pity them.

Oh, and before you start, I say this as the father of 3 children. Don't even think about going "perhaps in theory" on me.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 6'3", 250 lbs, and if you tried to spank me when you thought my behaviour was unacceptable, I would beat the shit out of you! Just because a kid can't punch your face in (like you deserve), doesn't give you a right to torture them.

I have a 2-year-old,

pfft a 2 year old. You say torture like you even know what the word means.
Check back with us in 15 years Conan, you'd probably have killed the little twat yourself.

Re:Two words:

[blackicye]

I have a 15 year old and a 10 year old.

I don't doubt your sincerity for wanting to be a good parent, or your belief in that you are doing a good job.
Heck you could be an awesome parent for all I know.

But at 10 and 15, I'm calling it way too early to tell how good your parenting will be in the future.

I'd reckon you're not in the clear as far as how well your parenting efforts have gone until your kids are in their early twenties at the very earliest.

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

I don't think so. I know theres urban myths to this effect, or similar.

But in reality, I just can't see any CPS complaining about, for example, the method mentioned in the article: The daugther (17) racks up $1100 of charges by texting around-the-clock, and as a consequence, she'll have to work in summer in the parents shop to pay off the debt.

To the contrary, *NOT* teaching your kid that actions have consequences and debts have to be paid is, imho, atleast borderline abusive. I definitely believe that there's parents harming their kids by *not* setting limits and showing consequences.

17 is late though, for learning this sort of stuff. It's best for children to learn the basics before they're teenagers. And best for parents too. The younger the child is, the more cards the parents have. For a really young child you as a parent holds pretty much *all* the cards. Physical abuse simply is not nessecary.

Re:Two words:

[revengebomber]

The joke practically gave you a haircut.

Re:Two words:

[Dan Hayes]

No, many things like altruism, fairness, a disinclination for cheating and so on arise naturally through evolution in any social species. Sure for some members of a society it can be rewarding to break these rules for personal gain, but that only holds true for a small fraction of people. Most people will genuinely play nice.

Re:Two words:

[Canordis]

And how are they punished? Supposing fines don't work and the person persists in stealing, burning buildings down, or whatever --- they end up in jail, where the real barbarity begins. If a child commits these acts, their fate is much the same. Society apparently has no problem with locking people up in cages to be abused. You can call it punishment, or rehabilitation, or whatever. They still end up abused.

What is this, argumentum ad ass-rape? The fact that people get abused in jail does not mean that the purpose of jail is for the people inside to be abused. And again: threat of punishment is no foundation for any sort of real moral compass; you said it yourself: you raise a child to believe in punishment as the reason not to do wrong, that child is going to do wrong the moment he thinks he'll get away with it.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Youth at risk!

Problem solved!

Re:Two words:

[Evil Pete]

This doesn't always work. It depends on the child. Generally I'd say try the non-violent discipline approach for general stuff. An occasional slap for life threatening behaviour is ok. Once you get into the slap-defiance mode it is really hard to get back to a reasonable place. It is just like a war. This doesn't mean I support the 'liberal' approach. It depends on the child, some kids handle physical discipline well. Others can be coaxed into the right behaviour. Some kids are little monsters and can be a threat to themselves and others, they require some desperate measures. But once they are in their teens you only have influence not control. You can give advice and if you have raised them reasonably well they will listen, though not necessarily obey.

My own kids: I worry that they aren't spirited enough. Not rebellious enough. But maybe that just means I am not well balanced myself.

Re:Two words:

[packeteer]

And you can lose that "they're all little angels" strawman. No one's saying that. But if beatings were an acceptable and effective punishment for misbehavior, we wouldn't need all these jails; we'd just hit criminals with a 2x4 until their mean streak were reduced to a pool on the floor, and then they'd never commit a crime again because they'd be too afraid of more beatings, right? Shame that doesn't actually work in the real world.

It's too bad that there is no easy answer to criminals, or children behaving badly. In a world full of violence one can imagine that perhaps people would grow up more peaceful if they have a less abusive childhood. I'm not saying that we would have world peace but I'm pretty sure that the world has way too much aggression. War and genocide are all over and it makes sense in my mind that growing up around violence sure helps it all perpetuate.

Re:Two words:

[cyclop]

Ehm. I guess you are trolling, because I am Italian and live in Italy since 26 years, so I guess I know how does the thing work.

Yes, texting costs from 0.10 to 0.20 each, but it involves prepaid cards. You pay a 50 Euro card/recharge from an ATM, and go away with that. If your kid ends the prepaid amount by texting, you can simply avoid to buy him/her another card.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nor does it make much sense. Go to be without?

Re:Two words:

[gkhan1]

I'm very proud to say that my home-land was the first country in the world to ban corporal punishment in the 70s. Today, it is universally accepted and there is not a single party that I know of that wishes to repeal it (not even the far right Christian Democrats). The text of the law itself is quite fantastic:

Children have a right to care, safety and a good upbringing. Children shall be treated with respect for their person and independence and shall not be subjected to corporal punishment or other demeaning treatment.

Things like this makes me proud to be a Swede.

Re:Two words:

[Dravik]

Kids only learn to lie better and play plausible deniability word games if their parents let them get away with it. Thats real easy to deal with. Quote from my father "This house isn't a courtroom!". I would then get double whatever my punishmet was going to be for trying to weasle my way out of it. It didn't take long to figure out that was a bad idea.

Re:Two words:

[Capt James McCarthy]

Two better words:

No Kids.

Re:Two words:

[mgcarley]

I've got a few more words: Give this kid a hobby or something better to do!

Hells bells, at 6807/month, thats a bit over 226/day (30 day/month). Assuming she sleeps circa 8 hours a day, that comes to a bit over 15 an hour, which is approximately 1 every 4 minutes.

I'm betting that half of those messages were less than 10 words, and therefore a hell of a waste! Myself, I usually try and use as many of the 160 available characters as possible, otherwise, its probably not worth the message.

My plan allows me 100 per month or 3 a day, but it costs me 2. I could treble that amount for an extra 3, if I wanted, but I don't reckon I would use them. I have 500 minutes a month as well, which costs me 18 - all that is enough for me, I think.

I guess I have better things to do than yabber away on the phone, like, oh, I don't know... work (I have a business to run!) and interact with people... that kind of thing. That said, even when I am interacting with people, I don't say much. Maybe thats my difference.

But at least this girl and anyone who can sent 1000 text messages a month could at least be given some bloody homework or something else to do? Maybe something that will help her appreciate the value of a dollar... and if she keeps sending a text message every 4 minutes, how she might not have any in her adult life. Myself, I would have to be REALLY bored to be sending even more than 10 messages a day.

Of course, I have a Bluetooth headset, so I'm no longer burdened with the annoyance of having to actually hold the phone. I think the only time I talk on the phone AND do something else is when I'm doing the grocery shopping, even then its usually with my docking st...err significant other.

Re:Two words:

[Saint Fnordius]

I think that's the real problem here, the way kids get used to AIM, MSN and other chat messengers first and then expect SMS to be the same thing. Kids here in Germany get into SMS first, and normally on a prepaid card that they have to refill themselves from their allowance. Different expectations from both the parents and the kids.

Reading through TFA, neither the kids nor the parents were aware that they could rack up such huge fees. Blaming the kids and threatening to spank them is only a sad joke that misses the point: these families got slammed by costs that were hidden in the fine print. After all, most of them switched to an unlimited plan after getting the nasty bill.

Re:Two words:

[misanthrope101]

Well, I got away with plenty through reasoning, though nothing that bad. It wasn't as if I burned down the house or smuggled arms and then lawyered my way out of it. But a byproduct is that I'm now a very logical person who can present my case persuasively, and evaluate the logical value of others' arguments.

I encourage the same in my kids, despite the price in added argumentation. They don't get away with anything major, but if they can present a logical, structured argument then they sometimes get a pass. They're also more likely to get what they want if they can present a case for it--saying "but I waaaaant it! Everyone else gets it! That's not faaaaiiiir!" will guarantee that they won't get it, but presenting a case will increase the odds dramatically of getting what they want.

It's not that I want to raise lawyers, but that I value the ability to present oneself logically. I know far too many adults (almost all, that is) who can't present a case for even the most obvious things. My kids will reach adulthood having gotten away with some trivial things and received a few more toys than they might've otherwise, but they'll whine less and be able to explain themselves like grownups when asked something.

I sincerely feel that parents who don't let their kids reason their way out of anything are raising future adults who won't be able to explain themselves intelligently. All parents are susceptible to something, and if it isn't reasoning, it might well be whining, complaining, crying, tantrum-throwing, or pouting. I'd rather have a soft spot for a well-presented argument than for constant whining.

Re:Two words:

[Saint Fnordius]

Congratulations on missing the whole point of the article. The kids involved weren't being naughty, are working to pay for the costs incurred, and the parents weren't aware until the first bill hit home.

It's not about the kids wasting money, it's about hidden costs in phone bills and how parents (as well as teens) need to think about getting unlimited plans for their text messaging as well.

Since you posted as an anonymous coward, though, I doubt you will read this reply. Most likely you simply posted in hopes of generating lots of controversy. I suspect you were simply trolling for outrage.

(And no, I'm not going to click on the link. There's a good chance it's NSFW, and I am at work)

Re:Two words:

[pcardno]

Probably because someone who works with children shouldn't be seen to be using the word "retard" as a description.

Re:Two words:

[Rob Kaper]

Plans with unlimited GPRS access exist in Europe as well, although most teenagers here are on pre-paid and not on a subscription plan.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think honesty and openess can prevent most of the cheating from happening. Allthough I've never been in any releationship, I think that cheating starts when something is amiss in your current marriage/releationship. Maybe you don't talk to eachother as often as you should, things build up and one thing leads to another.

Re:Two words:

[Rob Kaper]

At this age the kids don't understand money.

Oh, please, she's 17. In most Western countries "kids" (I prefer adolescents) at this age can do at least one out of driving, drinking, or intercourse. And in most Western countries people who are 17 do have some sort of job to give them a bit of extra cash to spend on precisely these sort of things (I hear "low on credit, but I get paid then and then so I can top up again" all the time).

(Even if you are talking about younger teenagers, your argument is moot. Here in Europe most people get a mobile phone around 12 and pay for their pre-paid plans from their allowance. As a matter of fact, I'd like to think that such a setup actually promotes financial responsibility.)

Re:Two words:

[someone300]

It can be argued, quite logically, that these people were not "just plain evil". Sure they did things we'd consider wrong, but for what reasons did they do this? Surely there must have been a reason, even if it was simply that they were screwed up mentally.... it may have indeed been been bad parenting that caused mental problems.

I don't believe in people just being 'evil'; the logic doesn't seem to hold, unless people are somewhat magical. Quite a lot seems to depend on your religious viewpoint.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

As soon as you resort to smacking, spanking, or hitting in any way, you've signaled your failure as a parent.

Sorry, but I prefer to judge people's success as a parent by things that make a difference in the long run: do their kids grow up as decent people, succeed in areas that interest them, etc.

I seem to have written this a lot here this week, but what goes before that is just a means to an end, and its value is exactly the degree to which it helps to achieve a good end. Put another way, if evaluating parenthood were as simple as what you wrote, then the world would be full of failed parents, and I can't believe the world would be in the mostly good shape it is if that were really the case.

They're good kids, but the few times they've done something wrong, they've been more hurt by my disappointment than any physical pain I could inflict.

Really? Of course kids want their parents to be proud of them, but if that one goal is now dominating their lives to the extent implied by what you wrote there, have you considered that maybe you're a little too hands-on?

However, it doesn't work unless you've been consistent since day one.

OK, so what would you suggest parents do if they haven't already found the silver bullet before their first child is born?

Re:Two words:

[Kijori]

hmm, last time I checked, patting a kid on the butt isn't really abuse

I don't really think I can add to that.

Re:Two words:

[fbjon]

How is that different from, "I have a gun, and you don't, so I get to tell you what to do", or "We can throw you in jail, so we get to tell you what to do"? That is the reality of adulthood.

The reality is that prison is a punishment for those who didn't get their lesson in the first place.

Re:Two words:

[inca34]

Heh... "Think of the children!!!" Shelter and protect them from everything so that when they leave the nest they are vulnerable as can be. I get it. Though unless their co-workers know this person's /. account I'm still not so sure why they went AC. I'd like to read his/her other posts.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

'Teaching' kids through punishment ignores the real reason why they should do good and makes it about avoiding the wrath of whover has more power.

Did it ever occur to you that this is nature's way of teaching the young?

Treating kids like adults, expecting them to have an adult understanding of the responsibilities that accompany their freedoms, is naive. They don't have that understanding. That's why they're kids.

Hopefully, as a child grows up and learns to behave responsibly, the parents allow the child increasing degrees of freedom to go with the responsibility they exhibit. However, this is a continual process: it doesn't start with the child waking up on the second day after it's born and suddenly having an adult level of understanding and responsibility. (Neither does it suddenly flip at age 18 or 21 or something.)

IMHO, one of the most impressive things about good parents is their ability to judge how far along this transition from innocent to adult their child is, and to give or restrict their freedoms accordingly.

It's a 'might makes right' lesson that's dehumanizing and disrespectful to a child (or any human being.)

So is a criminal justice system backed by police (who will, of course, use force to arrest you if you break the law and don't cooperate) or a country defending itself by military means. But in the real world, carrots and sticks are both effective ways of getting someone to do what you want. The humanity is in keeping that balance as far towards carrots as possible, and the skill is in knowing when the stick is required.

Re:Two words:

[TheRaven64]

Everything has consequences. Good parenting involves letting the child know this, and make their own decision about whether they will take the action and accept the consequences. If you behave rudely, then people will decide they don't wish to associate with you. When a child leaves home, any artificial consequences imposed by the parents will suddenly disappear, but those imposed by society will remain. It is the responsibility of the parent to ensure that the child is aware of those consequences.

As an example, take heavy drinking. There are two alternatives when it comes to alcohol. The first is for the parents to say 'no (or very little) alcohol allowed.' The other is to say 'if you drink a lot, you will probably embarrass yourself and in the morning you will feel terrible.' If the parents do the first, then as soon as they leave home, this restriction goes away, and you see the kind of binge drinking that is common at universities. With the second, the restrictions are self-imposed, and you see far fewer problems.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, is it that the children that needed the spanking started off more unruly and stayed that way??
I have three boys. The oldest has only been spanked a couple of times in his life, he has always been relatively obedient. My middle son has an some autism spectrum disorder and when he was younger and did not understand language or care about time outs, an occasional spanking was needed. Then there is my youngest. He refused to obey time outs, instead he would sort of obey them, but throw everything within reach, hit kick and scream. He is normally a sweet boy who happens to not respond to "I am disappointed in you". He has gotten far more spanking than the other two combined. He is finally starting to realize the consequences of his actions and behaving somewhat better, but a lot of times the only thing that worked was the spank.

My wife and I much prefer to use positive reinforcement. However, that is not always possible, as in the youngest ones case, he did not care if he was grounded, lost privileges, or went to bed without dinner (which he chose to do more than once instead of eating what he was given) He did not respond to positive reinforcement when trying to get to do something we wanted.

The point is not to scare the children, it is to make them want to avoid the behavior that caused them to get spanked. That said, it is naive to think that all children will respond to time outs and positive reinforcement.

A question on your study, did it take into account socio-economic conditions, income levels, socio-geographical conditions and others before coming to the conclusion that "spanking causes bad behavior"?

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sorry, but there really isn't any evidence for that.

Apart from the dramatic increase in the number and severity of crimes committed by young people, the dramatic decrease in the level of classroom discipline and respect for authority figures such as parents and teachers, and the general "me, me, me" attitude increasingly exhibited by Generation Text?

Oh, but wait, you've got a stunning counterargument:

Correlation is not causation.

Well, that's true, it's not. But if you can manage to look deeper than statistical dogma for a moment, you'll notice that correlation is suggestive of causation. Moreover, when other likely factors can reasonably be ruled out (for example, because they have been controlled), correlation does become evidence of causation.

So, tell us: what other major changes have their been in the way children have been raised over the past decade or two compared to the time before, which could credibly account for the dramatic change in behaviour exhibited by school-age children today?

If his parents can't think of a way to discipline him that doesn't involve physical violence, they have no business raising kids.

You write this, and in your following paragraph accuse me of setting up a straw man? How ironic.

Most parents who use physical means to discipline their children are not habitual child-beaters and do not use excessive force. In fact, statistically (according to the surveys carried out around the time restrictions on parental chastisement were introduced in the UK nations a few years ago, at least) most parents who support smacking naughty children do not actually administer such punishment very often, and see it as a last resort when the child fails to respond to milder punishment rather than the default.

I know in "today's PC world", people hate being told that they're incompetent parents, but sometimes it's true.

Yes, sometimes it is. But if it were true of every parent who ever laid a finger on their child to discipline them, I'd wager more than half the human population of the world is "incompetent" as a parent. We're doing pretty well, considering how long ago that would have led to entire generations being dominated by badly brought-up kids.

But if beatings were an acceptable and effective punishment for misbehavior, we wouldn't need all these jails

Who's talking about "beatings"? Unless that word has very different connotations where you are from what it means to me, there is a big difference between giving a kid a beating and giving them some brief physical punishment such as a light smack. An increasing number of PC child protection charities apparently can't comprehend the rather fundamental difference, which is why I no longer support them, and why I have no problem arguing for a reasonable balance in discussions like this.

Re:Two words:

[TheRaven64]

Why don't they just run an IM client on their phone? Most modern phones run a fairly complete OS which supports one, and then you can send messages at the rate of data. Even something as bloated as XMPP is a few orders of magnitude cheaper than SMS.

Re:Two words:

[Wookietim]

How about this - No Phone. Kids don't have to have cell phones. It is not a physical requirement and it might help them to become a little more focused.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a brother growing up. He was a hellion. He had ADHD. He took ritalin. It didn't help. And now, 10 years later, he is emotionless and uncaring about almost everything. I blame the ritalin.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

you stink

Re:Two words:

[elrous0]

The day my kid calls child protective services for a spanking is the day they can have her. Let's see how she likes foster care for a while.

Re:Two words:

[capnchicken]

"I'll phone Children's Aid!"

"Is that right? Oh, well let me get you the phone tough guy."

"What are you doing? If I call them you'll get in trouble!"

"Oh I might get into a little bit of trouble, but I know it takes them 23 minutes to get here, and in that time, somebody gonna get a hurt real bad."

Re:Two words:

[elrous0]

Using physical pain as punishment is inacceptable towards *anyone*

Oh, what a bunch of horseshit. Physical pain is the most immediate and effective "attention getter" that we humans have (that's why it's there). Put your hand on a hot stove sometime and see for yourself. If it takes a quick slap to get a kid's attention when he's doing something dangerous or disruptive, that's a very small price to pay in service of a larger good. There are plenty of situations where bargaining with a kid (or just yelling at him) simply doesn't cut it, when you need something more immediate and tangible.

Re:Two words:

[neomunk]

Oh look, some racist tard once again mistakenly thinks that his or her words are worth seeing.

Good thing that they were lucid enough to realize that if you don't post it as an AC you're never taken seriously again because then everyone can match the little tiny mind that doesn't work so well to the name.

Get some balls Anonymous Pussy!

Re:Two words:

[hb253]

My children's mental health is fine. They're well adjusted, responsible, caring and smart. I respect them and they respect me and my wife.

We are not controlling or demanding. However, we do set limits and give them responsibilities. We have done so since they were toddlers and it's worked out quite well.

Re:Two words:

[elrous0]

Ancient Rome.

You would be surprised how effective beheadings, crucifixions, and the coliseum can be at keeping the populace in line.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

> Oh look, ...

Oh look, they WERE worth seeing after all. Now shut up. Oh sorry, I always forget that you can't...

Re:Two words:

[elrous0]

Your argument would hold water if kids were little rational adults. Most of the time, they're selfish little fools--with neither the reasoning capacity nor the experience and wisdom to be left to their own devices without a little "oppression."

Re:Two words:

[neomunk]

Establish authority in a non-threatening way? What animals are you talking about? Certainly not either dogs or cats. Every dog or cat I've raised that raised offspring of their own resorted to savage looking growls and nips (nips hurt!) to keeps their young in line.

Re:Two words:

[elrous0]

I would go with ten words: "Get a job and pay for your own phone, brat."

Re:Two words:

[MindStalker]

And such is why you grew up to become a troll.

Re:Two words:

[elrous0]

If your daughter is pumping out 200 text messages a day, you would be a bad parent NOT to take it away. This is some seriously addictive (and dangerous) behavior. This is a girl walking around completely oblivious to the world around her, and its dangers.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Society is now starting to pay for what it has caused because of the political correctness in child rearing. That said there is also a lot of problem children caused by bad parenting. How many news stories will we see this year that involve a parent making a child go back and fight or beat up someone?

Sending a child to bed without dinner may be considered abuse. Feeding them a nutritous meal that they don't like isn't. I've never met a child (or adult) who likes 100% of everything. Enough with the hotdogs and hamburgers, how about gulosh (never did like that) or brocoli?

Re:Two words:

[neomunk]

-I- have kids. 3 of them composed of my own spermies, and a live in nephew. You know what else? I spank my kids. I sure do. In public if they ask for it. I don't punch my kids, kick my kids, throw them around, spank until they can't sit, none of that. I don't abuse my kids, and you know what? No one has ever called Child Protective Services on me. Well, once, but that's because my son got 2 black eyes by accident. That happened while he was playing, was in no way related to any punishment, and the nice lady from the state realized this and poof, the problem went away. When she asked if I spanked them I said "I sure do", and my response was greeted with a smile and nod. I suppose that's because after a nice long chat with my child she came away with the impression that he was a happy and pleasant child. Well balanced.

I on the other hand was only spanked when I did something REALLY stupid, say once every 3 years or so. I ended up being one of those turds that doesn't understand that life has real consequences, and was thus woefully unprepared for real adult life. I completely screwed up my teenage years trying to be 'cool', it took me the better part of my early 20s to come to grips with reality and my place in it. I don't want my kids to go through that. Hell, I THOUGHT I had it good, till I realized I had been passed up by all the kids I had it better than.

I'm not going to make the same mistake with my kids as my grandmother made with me. She tried though, bless her soul.

Re:Two words:

[the-intersocialist]

In Sweden it is not only illegal to physically punish a child, it is a more grave offence then assaulting a adult. It is also a crime for day-care-workers, teachers and any other in professional contact with the child not to report if they have any suspicion that a child is being physically beaten.

More than one brittish family that has gotten into trouble with the law because of this.

Re:Two words:

[Cro Magnon]

I'm not saying beat the crap out of your kids but a smack on the butt can set a child right faster than telling them to go sit in that chair or in that corner.

I had a thought along those lines. I can imagine a bratty kid being told to sit in the corner, and saying "No" because he knows that mommy & daddy won't do anything if he doesn't. OTOH, when my mom told me to sit in the corner, I KNEW what she'd do if I continued to act up.

Re:Two words:

[Saint Fnordius]

First you have to realise that the SMS fees are a problem, and that's what stung the kids in this article. They weren't aware, and nobody warned them--especially not the telcos, who loved the profits these kids were making them.

The price of some unlimited GPRS or UMTS connections is about the same as for unlimited SMS by most telcoms, I would think. I live in Germany, so I really can't say what the US mobile companies charge.

Finally, another factor is getting the bloody client to work correctly. I still can't get GMail to work on my MotoRAZR Vxx, due to issues with O2 Germany. Getting AIM or GTalk to work is a problem I don't know how to solve.

Re:Two words:

[Mr2001]

Apart from the dramatic increase in the number and severity of crimes committed by young people, the dramatic decrease in the level of classroom discipline and respect for authority figures such as parents and teachers, and the general "me, me, me" attitude increasingly exhibited by Generation Text? That's the same old list of complaints every generation has had about its successor, back to the ancient Greeks - a cliche more tired than "get off my lawn" and "turn down that racket" put together.

So, tell us: what other major changes have their been in the way children have been raised over the past decade or two compared to the time before, which could credibly account for the dramatic change in behaviour exhibited by school-age children today? Perhaps the culture as a whole has gotten more violent, or maybe the "dramatic change" is caused by ADHD drugs or by living in a society that treats kids as criminals, or maybe the change is just plain overstated.

Most parents who use physical means to discipline their children are not habitual child-beaters and do not use excessive force. According to whom? I say any force is excessive unless it's done to prevent immediate further harm (e.g. breaking up a fight or keeping fingers out of the light socket).

Who's talking about "beatings"? Unless that word has very different connotations where you are from what it means to me, there is a big difference between giving a kid a beating and giving them some brief physical punishment such as a light smack. It's only a matter of degree. Once you start using threats of violence to influence behavior, you've already crossed the line; the only difference between "beating" and "smack" is how long it keeps hurting.

Re:Two words:

[hb253]

Sorry, but I prefer to judge people's success as a parent by things that make a difference in the long run: do their kids grow up as decent people, succeed in areas that interest them, etc.

At ages 15 and 10, you have a good idea of what kids will be like when they grow up. Of course, things can go wrong, but at that point their personalities are pretty well set in stone. Based on what I see in my kids, I know they will be successful in the ways that matter.

I seem to have written this a lot here this week, but what goes before that is just a means to an end, and its value is exactly the degree to which it helps to achieve a good end. Put another way, if evaluating parenthood were as simple as what you wrote, then the world would be full of failed parents, and I can't believe the world would be in the mostly good shape it is if that were really the case.

I don't know that I'm evaluating parenthood. However, I'm surprised that people think it's OK to use pain as a regular part of child rearing. It's easy to strike a child into submission. It's harder to think of ways to discipline kids by guiding and teaching them.

Really? Of course kids want their parents to be proud of them, but if that one goal is now dominating their lives to the extent implied by what you wrote there, have you considered that maybe you're a little too hands-on?

I'm actually quite hands off. Why do you assume otherwise? I don't dominate their lives. I encourage them to think for themselves, to think critically, to be individuals, to take responsibility for their actions. I rarely ask if they've done their homework. They're not forced to do anything they don't want to do.

OK, so what would you suggest parents do if they haven't already found the silver bullet before their first child is born?

There's no silver bullet. However, there is the ability to be self-aware, analyze your own past, see what works and doesn't work with other parents, remember what it was like for your friends when you were a kid, etc, etc.

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

And again: threat of punishment is no foundation for any sort of real moral compass

And what I'm telling you is that most people don't have a moral compass anyway. The moral compass is the exception, not the rule. The rest of the people have to fear physical violence to deter them from crime. The ink of history books is blood.

Re:Two words:

[edizzles]

All i know is she gona have to work alot more then jsut the summer to pay off a 1k phone bill, I recomend fishnets and a street corner. But realy you'd think the parents woulod notice the rampet texting and maybe do somthing about it. Or at least change there bill top unlimited.

Re:Two words:

[Angostura]

Let's see. Have I ever had to sleep without an evening meal? Yes. It wasn't particularly pleasant, and I ate a big breakfast the next morning.

Establishing authority in a non-threatening manner suggests to me that you would like the to never be any 'or else' attached to a parental request.

Re:Two words:

[neomunk]

I second this comment. I had a different experience myself, but with a similar outcome.
Long story short, CPS does indeed know the difference between abuse and punishment, at least where I live.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

die bitch

Re:Two words:

[GooberToo]

...and the first thing that many courts do to change all of the behaviors your citing, when they were never physically disciplined is to physically discipline them to good results. What does the military do? Physically discipline them. Why? Because it has centuries of proof that it works for the majority. The problem is, many people believe that physical discipline is an end all to its own. It's not!

From my own personal experience, the worst kids, by far, are typically those that were never physically disciplined. Talk about spoiled, selfish kids. Talk about piece of crap young adults. Heck, take the family across the street from me. Before they had kids, they would openly scold us for disciplining our kids. Our kids are pretty much grown and they are primed to be excellent members of society. We often receive praise for their good behavior. The family across the street refused to physically disipline their first child. No one allows their kids to play with that child without direct supervision, and the play sessions often end quickly with that child being told to go home. Their other two children have both been physically disciplined from an early age and are very nice kids. The parents around htere enjoy them playing with their children. These are results I've observed for my entire life.

There are many, many aspects of this, to which I'm fairly sure most studies fail to capture. I do agree that some kids never require physical discipline. There are those that absoluetely need it. Implemneted correctly, it hardly ever needs to actually be used.

To be sure, like any tool, it can be misused and abused.

Re:Two words:

[Dravik]

A well reasoned purpose is not what I was intending to imply I was punished for. If I had a good reason for what I did I was always allowed to say it. I was talking about general BS hairsplitting. Ex. Parent: "I told you not to go to play at Jimmy's house, why were you there?" kid: "I didn't go to Jimmy's house I was on the sidewalk in front of his house and he just happened to come out". That is the kind of BS that didn't fly but to many times pulls parents these days into lawyer like arguments. Kids know what their parents meant when they said things. Playing word games or "forgetting" at an opportune time shouldn't let a kid off the hook. Otherwise the kid learns that they can get away with anything as long as they frame it the right way.

Re:Two words:

[demonlapin]

I think you don't mean GSM as much as you mean "single standard", which is indeed advantageous. But for the vast majority of Americans who do not make frequent overseas trips, it doesn't matter whether the phones work overseas. What matters is that they work at home, at Grandma's, and on vacation - which they do. As is the case with Australia, the signature characteristic of the US is how damned big it is.

So no, our phones don't work overseas (unless you pony up and get a multi-band GSM), but that's also a near-valueless feature for the average consumer, because most of them will rarely (or never) go abroad. I'm 32, from a middle-class family, and I've left the lower 48 three times (though one was quite a trip). Next time I go, I'll just get a cheap mobile and prepaid card while I'm there, and tell the family what the number is. They can then call me whenever. (Or I'll just forward my Vonage. Even easier.)

Incidentally, as re: your distance comment, if you look at coverage maps of the US you'll find a lot of thin-to-nonexistent coverage areas - there is service on and within ~2 mi of major highways, but little or nothing off them. Similar solution to a similar problem - not enough people to make proper coverage worthwhile.

Re:Two words:

[smellsofbikes]

I don't know about battery, but in Colorado we had to pass a special law, commonly referred to as the Good Samaritan law, that prevents people from sueing people who injure them while saving their lives, in medical circumstances -- break ribs during CPR, infections resulting from emergency tracheotomy. Frighteningly enough, it was necessary to pass this law because people were indeed sueing other people for *saving* their *lives*.

Re:Two words:

[OrangeTide]

So when you refuse to sit on the timeout step, what is a parent to do? Since it is somehow un-PC to hand cuff a kid to the step or lock them in their room or deprive them of a meal.

Re:Two words:

[contrapunctus]

You spend years before this happened to gain their respect.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice.

And in about an hour (s)he's going to raid the fridge, or demand money to buy him/herself a pizza or french fries. How are you going to deal with that ?

But this problem will probably solve itself : what happens when a child without having boundaries becomes an adult and gets children him/herself ?

Even better : does the gouverment expect "boundless" children to become boundary-respecting adults when they want them too ?

As a last remark : if parents is not allowed to set boundaries to their children, why should "papa state" be ? If the state acknowledges (by the existence of the police etc.) that "boundless" citicens exist and should be dealt with, why do they think that disallowing parents to set *and* enforce boundaries is a good idea ?

I'm sorry, but the people who thought about this being a good idea probably spend less than 30 minutes a week around children (and even than could terminate that contact whenever they want), and have no idea what monsters people (of *all* ages*) can become when they realize that their actions have no repercussions.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Offcourse it is. Using physical pain as punishment is inacceptable towards *anyone*. We don't do that to adults, I don't see how it should be different for kids.
Not just Sweden. Most of Europe."

Which is why you've turned into a bunch of pussies who are incapable of standing up for themselves. (Except, of course, for shooting off your mouths.)

Re:Two words:

[div_2n]

One word: sociopath.

There is no solution (at least that I've ever heard of).

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Har har. Sure moron, medication is the answer. Why don't we also pierce your eye with a hot needle and give you electroshock too?

Sorry pal, your kneejerk response with Ritalin was unfunny.

Re:Two words:

[Taevin]

Way to completely ignore what lessthan said (I'm not sure if this has a technical name so I'll just call it argumentum ad "lalala I'm not listening!"). As he pointed out, it's usually best to avoid name calling simply because it obfuscates the real argument. lessthan tried to explain to you that Kierthos did not commit argumentum ad hominem, a logical fallacy that goes something like this:

1. Person A makes argument B.
2. Person A has some undesirable quality C.
3. Argument B is false, because of quality C of person A.

While I've always been well complemented on my reading comprehension ability, I certainly could be wrong about what Kierthos said. Perhaps you'd like to show me where he said your argument was wrong because of any one of your traits? He simply suggested that if you "...took a really healthy dump and got rid of that hippie liberal crap, you'd realize [the truth of his argument]" (whether it's true or not; my purpose in this post is not to argue for or against that, only to correct your notions of this particular logical fallacy). As I said before, this obfuscates the real argument as we have seen already since you immediately focused in on his personal attack (a quite natural response, of course) and thus, is best avoided.

His real argument is that mild corporal punishment does have beneficial qualities as a method of discipline and he supports his claim with a personal anecdote. It would be well within your rights to ignore his argument altogether simply because his sole personal anecdote cannot prove his argument, only disprove the counter-argument that corporal never works.

In the future, I would suggest realizing that people usually add in personal attacks when they are angry (or frustrated with their opponent in a debate for not agreeing with them) and instead of becoming defensive and screaming ad hominem, use it to go on a counter offensive (unless of course it truly is an ad hominem argument, in which case you should decimate their argument). At the very least, a passionate argument might convince your audience or even your opponent. After all, anger and passion have won (and started) more conflicts than truth and logic ever have anyway.

Re:Two words:

[MarcoG42]

Are you also taking into consideration that children can be very, *very* good actors? Are you sure that the "hurt" you see doesn't turn into giggles and mutterings of "I can't believe they fell for it, again!" as soon as you're out of hearing? Children can be a lot more manipulative then you'll let yourself believe, especially your own kids. This is coming from an uncle whose nephews see him as the "cool geek with all the neat toys." They confide in me. They're generally very well behaved, but know how to play the system. Perhaps your kids have just learned that a very hurt look and a heartfelt-sounding "I'm sorry!" gets them off the hook. Then again, maybe they really are that easily disciplined. There's no telling, but I know I always benefited from a good smack, and I'm no worse for it.

As an aside I was talking with a friend over the weekend, and he was telling me about his girlfriend's sister's kid yelling at his mom "I'm going to kill your husband!" This is coming from a 6 year old...the husband in question would be the kid's dad. Do you think that warrants a "I'm very disappointed in you!" and a stern look, or a smack and a good long talk? And no, this kid has NEVER been spanked or otherwise physically punished. I can say that he is VERY badly behaved, and my own opinion is he is that way precisely because he knows all he gets is a talk about how he shouldn't say or do things. How exactly is that a consequence to a bad action?

Re:Two words:

[alisson]

Thank you. I was spanked as a child, and it helped shape my behavious in a very positive way. I'm obviously not advocating child abuse, I'm just against what really ammounts to neglect.

Re:Two words:

[Kelbear]

Using physical pain as punishment is inacceptable towards *anyone*. We don't do that to adults, I don't see how it should be different for kids. Perhaps you don't, but I do. I don't even see physical pain as punishment being unacceptable either.

And physical pain has a pretty wide range of possible punishment, just like incarceration. I certainly wouldn't approve all kinds of pain for any punishment.

I wouldn't write off physical pain as being unacceptable, I would just prefer that it not be used. The minimum amount of punishment necessary for getting the job done is what should be used. If it's not enough, more should be used, if it's too little, the punishment should increase. I wouldn't simply write off physical pain in general.

Spanking is pretty much all pain and no injury, no physical scarring or disability, just a temporary unpleasant experience. It doesn't belong in the same category as racking, flogging, etc. I got my share of spanking as a kid, but looking back, I'm glad my parents did it. I honestly believe that it proved beneficial to my development in the long run.

Re:Two words:

[drinkypoo]

Reading through TFA, neither the kids nor the parents were aware that they could rack up such huge fees. Blaming the kids and threatening to spank them is only a sad joke that misses the point: these families got slammed by costs that were hidden in the fine print.

Are there really places hiding the cost of SMS? Every time I've gotten a phone (and I've had phones from sprint, t-mobile, and edge so far) they were quite clear on how many text messages I got, and how much they cost thereafter.

In addition, you have to be some kind of jackass not to ask what it's going to cost you to do things.

They may have told me because I asked, I don't remember now. But it's the kind of thing that you should ask before signing a contract. Or, you know, you could read it. I read the entirety of my last cellphone contract.

Re:Two words:

[drinkypoo]

Using physical pain as punishment is inacceptable towards *anyone*.

I'm not sure I agree with you. On one hand, yes, having to use violence is a symbol of failure. If it has gotten to that point, then you have done something wrong. On the other hand, it is better to give your child a few spanks on the ass end and have them remember it the next time they think of playing in the street than to have them hit by a car.

I think it's bad, but I think it's better than the alternative once you have reached that point.

Re:Two words:

[kalirion]

Instead, stop seeing your child as "just plain evil", and start looking for solutions to his problems.

Three months ago slashdot ran a story about this letter regarding a child just like that. What would you have done in place of the kid's guardian?

Re:Two words:

[ranton]

Your kids may very well be fine, I never said that they were definetly "screwed up". I said that I feared that they may be.

I would be considered by basically any psychologist to be very well adjusted. And I have talked to a couple of them through the couples counseling I wanted to do before I got married. I react well to criticism, am very responsible and caring, well above average intelligence (while not a genius, except maybe by the technical definition), and I am generally happy as a default mood.

But I found through counseling that I have one major flaw that is most probably a result of my upbringing. I have almost never yelled at my fiance, and would never even think of hitting her in anger. But I do the same thing my parents did; I make her feel like she has "disappointed" me whenever she does something I do not approve of. I never go out and say that I am disappointed, but it is usually fairly obvious. And this feeling that I unknowingly give my fiance is far more damaging than any physical strike could be.

Not everyone's psychological idiosyncrasies manifest as mental health disorders such as depression. Left unchecked, I could have very well caused my fiance to become depressed later in our marriage. That is why I wanted to do couples therapy before our wedding this summer, so that we could work out any issues that maybe we didnt even know we had. The ego defences that I had developed in childhood did not damage my mental health, but they did make be a "worse" boyfriend/fiance/husband. If my fiance had lived our whole marriage with the constant desire to not disappoint me, she would be quite miserable indeed.

Your children may very well have no major problems. I assure you that they do have some protective ego defences that have been caused by your parenting, but that is true of every child. But the way you describe them they sound more like brainwashed children whose first-most desires in life are to live up to their parent's expectations. I have never met them, but that is how it sounds from your posts.

Parenting is very difficult, and it takes alot of work to be a good parent. But realize that your average person has, well, a 100 IQ. And I do not know about you, but I do not think that 100 IQ is really all that smart. Most people are not capable of walking the fine line between being a good parent or a controlling parent. And to call anyone a failure because they have had to spank their children is being pretty harsh.

I am not saying that the correct answer is to beat your children. But the correct answer is not necessarily to never spank your children. Any credible child psychologist would tell you that no parenting technique will work for every child. You may have been lucky that it has worked for two children, but I guarantee you that it would not work for any child. Even though my parents brought me up in a way similar to your described parenting methods, I doubt I would have turned out as well as I have without a few swift smacks to the butt when I was really out of line.

Children need to learn that there are SERIOUS consequences to some actions. Most adult laws are simply fines or probations, but the really serious ones warrent jail time. Spanking is the child version of jail time. And I would much rather have a police officer punch me in the face a few times than send me to jail for 6 months, so I think our children should be pretty grateful of their arrangement.
--

Re:Two words:

[Vexor]

What experience would I lack if I wanted to adopt a child?

Re:Two words:

[feepness]

You've never been hungry, have you? Like, really hungry, not just I-missed-lunch peckish?

Have you ever been that way because you weren't particularly fond of the food that had been offered?

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

if it linked to a study proving your theory, you'd have been modded informative.

if it were true, you would have been modded insightful.

if it were funny, you would have been modded funny.

As it stands, that was just lame and trite and it is just one more worthless comment taking up space in a database somewhere. Boooooring!

Re:Two words:

[Abcd1234]

But at 10 and 15, I'm calling it way too early to tell how good your parenting will be in the future.

That's certainly not been my experience. IMHO, if it isn't evident your kid is fucked up by 15, odds are you're in good shape. 12-16 is *precisely* the age group when things start to go wrong, if they're going to.

Re:Two words:

[OrangeTide]

You're a funny guy. most children push the boundaries to see where the limits are. some of them figure out that parents can't escalate the punishment beyond the naughty corner. I mean if locking them in their room is no longer acceptable, what else can you do?

also spanking is not physical punishment. it's ritualized shaming. and to be effective it should be used almost never, but a child should of course understand exactly what it means. and it's less cruel than shunning a child for a day, for example.

Re:Two words:

[ranton]

Most people only play nice because of the law structures that we put in place. Not because of any natural desire to be a good person.

You need to read up on psychological experiments such as The Milgram Experiment. Obedience to authority beats out natural "decency" almost every time. They found that 2/3 of people would apply a lethal dose of electricity to an ordinary person just because an authority figure told them to. Almost 100% of people would apply doses that almost exceeded a lethal amount. The study was used to show why it was so easy for Nazi soldiers to commit such atrocities during the Holocaust. Now these types of experiments are considered unethical because it shows people how "evil" they really are deep inside.

--

Re:Two words:

[Xtravar]

You must carry the recessive gene for 'rage'. Please have your mate tested before making babies.

Re:Two words:

[Jeld]

The problem here is "consequences". Basically, you, as a parent, is very limited in the sort of consequences you can bestow on your kid for misbehaving. Especially when they are little and do not perceive long term cause effect links that well. Saying to a 5 year's old we are not going to the zoo because you broke mommie's favourite vase 2 days ago doesn't work, because the cause and effect are too remote. And with teens it depends on the temperament of the child. What are the options? Grounding doesn't work if your child is smart and daring enough and you do not turn your house into a prison. When my parents tried to ground me, I said "fuck you" and made a cloth rope from 6th floor and instead of them being worried that I am 2 hours late from a friend's house they were worried that I have been nobody knows where for 2 days. They tried to remove my pocket allowance. I said "fuck you" and went guitar playing in the subway. So, what exactly do you do?

Re:Two words:

[AK Marc]

Instead, stop seeing your child as "just plain evil", and start looking for solutions to his problems.

And what might that be? I was upset when my parents divorced. I destroyed furniture. I was sent to a number of child psychologists to try to get me from destroying things. None of the trained professionals could "fix" me, so why would you presume that it would be possible for untrained parents to somehow stumble across a fix? The "fix" for me was to ignore the problem and try to get me to only destroy things in my room. Eventually, I stopped. The "fix" was provided by me to me and no external factors had any effect on it.

There are some issues that are beyond parents' control.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

"I say most because it does seem to work on a few of them just not many."

Those ones probably do spank their kids but just not in public or in front of others. They use milder forms of discipline when in public due to the stigma of physical punishment.

Re:Two words:

[Chris Burke]

But what if you're a good parent and your child is just plain evil?

I'll accept that as a hypothetical possibility, but I'm going to say it's very rare. Maybe the parent is "good" as in not evil, but many "good" parents aren't "good" as in effective. If they are willing to say that their child is "just plain evil", then I'd say they probably fit in that category and don't want to deal with the tough problems. Sure, if the "child" is in their late teens then however their personality formed it's probably too late for any major fixes, at least from the parents, but there's no reason to think a third grader is fundamentally evil and cannot be changed.

For some reason I'm reminded of "The Dog Whisperer", who time and time again goes to houses where the owner is convinced that their dog is a lost cause, that they're fundamentally bad dogs. In walks the host, who within minutes has figured out what the owner is doing wrong, how they are encouraging bad behavior and not giving the dog what they need, and soon has the dog sitting politely waiting on their owner's command instead of running around tearing up the house or whatever, with the owner gasping in amazement that their dog could ever be like that.

Obviously people aren't dogs, they're much more complicated and no "Child Whisperer" is going to waltz in and make all the problems go away in time for the commercial break. I'm just saying that I strongly suspect that when a person says "I'm a good parent and my child is just plain evil" that they're wrong on both counts.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Either you are not a parent, you are delusional about your own children's behavior, or your are some sort of parenting god and should probably write a book on perfect parenting and get rich.

The other day I was at a water park and there was a kid (about 7 years old) sitting on top of one of the fountains yelling at all of the other kids about how they cannot climb to the top. This went on for about 10 minutes when my 4 year old went up to him, stood there for about 30 seconds while the other kid kept yelling at him about not coming up to the top, and then my son splashed some water on him. The mother of the screaming child was blinded by her own son's misbehavior and immediately started scolding my son for splashing hers. I didn't take this too well and and told her that it was obvious where her little shit got his bad attitude from. She stormed off and left after I verbally berated her in front of everyone else. There was applause.

The moral of the story is, parents often see their own children's behavior through rose colored glasses.

Re:Two words:

[HungWeiLo]

Even light spankings are heavily frowned upon.

And when they grow up, they'll be so messed up that they end up paying for what they didn't receive as children!

Re:Two words:

[stmfreak]

Two better words: Internet Block.

My eldest racked up $75 in ring tone downloads the _day after_ he got his phone. The _day after_ I explained that he had my credit card in his hand. The _day after_ I told him not to download any ring tones without my permission.

I called Cingular/AT&T and had them put an internet block on his phone. No downloads, no browsing, no SMS. Sorry bub.

After reading this article, it's looking more and more like a great move.

Re:Two words:

[spun]

Modern research says you are wrong. Economic games played in India for months worth of salary have shown some interesting findings. Less than 5% of people are naturally selfish. About 15% of people are naturally selfless and always more concerned with fairness and reciprocity than anything else. The rest will do what society tells them. In most cases, society tells them to be selfish. So in fact, society does rather the opposite of what you say.

Look at Jean Liedloff's book The Continuum Concept, in which she studies rain forest tribes unimpacted by western culture. Despite having no taboos against incest, adultery, and homosexuality, these happened less than in cultures that had those taboos. All of societies efforts to repress and change human nature tend to backfire.

It's true that most people are plain and simple, but all that means is that they would rather do what they are told than think for themselves. There is nothing wrong with this. The fact that they just do what has worked in the past gives us innovators the slack to innovate. If everyone were trying new things all the time, we'd all starve. But it means we have a responsibility to each other, to create the kind of society we want. Most people will act fairly in a fair society, just as most people will cheat in a society of cheaters.

The myth of the necessity of control is foisted off on the masses by people who want to control others. Only control freaks who want authority to tell you what to do will tell you that human nature is basically bad and needs the threat of punishment in order to be perfected. Do not listen to those people, they are sick in the head.

Re:Two words:

[stephenisu]

I actually asked one of my friends kids (15 yrs old btw) why they did the things they did (stuff like telling their father and mother to shut up). I'll never forget the only time I saw one of my friends tell his mom to shut up (we were 15). I smacked him across the face right there. His mom let him walk all over him his whole life. Up until that point he never even realized how spoiled he was. Up until he was mostly through college he never really understood respect. Many of the the things he said to people were hurtful (mostly about minor things) but he truly didn't understand why people made "such a big deal" out of it. Some kids, even generally good intentioned ones, need physical punishment. I am not advocating beating your kids, but sometime a small step above being grounded to your room with cable tv is in order. One more thing... Make sure it is clear to your kids what is expected of them before you ever resort to physical punishment, and be consistent about it. I've seen more than one parent flip-flop between being very lenient, and way too harsh. Your kid will just think you are an ass and not listen anyways because they don't know what your reaction will be. I really wish some parents knew the difference between instilling fear and teaching respect.

Re:Two words:

[Dan Hayes]

Yes, I know about the Milgram experiment, the Stamford Prison experiment and a whole bunch of similar studies on obedience and in- and out-group behaviours and so on. They certainly show that obedience to authority can get people to act in ways we would consider "evil", but in general they require either direct orders from an authority figure, dehumanising the victim, or both. Morality is strongest within a person's immediate "tribe" due to game theoretical considerations which arise when you repeatedly interact with someone who remembers what has happened before.

You seem to be saying that what can happen in certain specific circumstances is more important than what happens the other 99% of the time. By that logic, everyone who drives a car is a "road murderer" because it's possible that they might knock down and kill somebody. Things like the Milgram experiment and all are incredibly important to know about, but shouldn't be taken out of context like you've done.

Re:Two words:

[Dan Hayes]

No, sadly I can tell you that sometimes it happens even when things are perfect... don't ever underestimate impulse actions, "grass is greener" and other such things. Biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made, and four years on I still feel like shit about it.

Re:Two words:

[ranton]

I was pointing out how people generally will act based on what authority figures have told them to do, not on any innate sense of morality. We do not steal because our parents have educated us on why we shouldnt do it, not because we were born with any sense that stealing is bad.

All of our moral laws tell us not do things. Do not steal. Do not kill. That is because our natural tendencies are to kill, steal, lie; whatever it takes to survive. Now that we live in a society where surviving is not that difficult, we rely on our society's "rules" to help us supress these "evil" desires. We no longer need to steal to eat because food is everywhere.

These morals are put into place so that we do not fall back on our natural tendencies. Our modern society can only exist with these morals in place, which is why it is so important that we keep passing them on to our children. Otherwise they would turn out like all feral children do: almost completely void of any kind of moral compass.

--

Re:Two words:

[Creedo]

(I'm sure if she said "kill a man," I might have had some objections, but thankfully, such requests were rare)
They were only RARE? Your mom was metal, man.

Re:Two words:

[flynns]

I work with youth. Ritalin is a bad start for the answer. Less then 3% of the "ADD" youth I worked with need Ritalin.

You're right. Adderall is the preferred drug these days, anyway. ;)

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

If you're close enough to the kid to be able to slap him, surely you're also close enough to physically remove him from whatever is dangerous and/or unwished.

Kids will generally *notice* if doing certain things causes them to be removed from the situation.

Geting to leave the table after having made a ruckus, and have the other people eat their dessert while you don't is plenty "immediate and tangible" for a kid.

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

It's pretty common for the abused to repeat the pattern, being unable to see that it can be different. Many girls growing up in families where the mother is beaten grow up to choose partners who abuse them lateron. Doesn't make it rigth.

The minimum amount of physical pain required to get a 5-year old to understand that certain behaviour is unacceptable is zero.

Re:Two words:

[watchingeyes]

Trust me, making her use a pre-paid phone that she has to pay for (so there is no chance of receiving any bills, let alone one for $1000) would cut down on her texting pretty quickly. As for her being addicted, I'll grant you that, but I'm not entirely sure where the "completely oblivious to the world around her, and its dangers" comes from... Couldn't the same be said for people who spend all day on Slashdot and are posting here at 3 in the morning?

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

That may work for some kids, but as many have pointed out--each kid is different. Sometimes, especially for young children, they need some sort of physical response to notice. Especially when they're too young to talk to and reason with.

I'm not talking about spanking a child, but as others have mentioned--sometimes a slap on the wrist, or some other negative physical contact is necessary to get their attention.

Re:Two words:

[denobug]

Here's my parents solution to kids complaining Child Abuse: Tell your kids about that option, and let them know that they WILL be taken away from their parents. Let them decide for themselves if most of the foster family will offer them the same priveledge and pampering as their own parents do (i.e. spending money and that sexy Wii they've been drooling for). At age of 8, I know very well that what dreaming someone else other than your parents will offer you a better standard of living (as a kid) is less believable than the story of Santa Clause.

I don't regret being punishedphysically without actually causing any injury, of course) when I was little. In fact, had they not done so, I may have turned out to be a brat. I don't resent their form of punishment. I'm grateful that they took all that trouble to hand out those punishment and make sure that I understand clearly why I receive them. I think I turned out all right after all.

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

You raise an interesting point:

Look at Jean Liedloff's book The Continuum Concept, in which she studies rain forest tribes unimpacted by western culture. Despite having no taboos against incest, adultery, and homosexuality, these happened less than in cultures that had those taboos.

Perhaps when people live in small groups, they are more co-dependent and less likely to injure one another. There is no anonymity. Everyone knows everyone. The consequences for bad behavior could be violence, shunning, or expulsion from the group. When the next nearest group is a long distance away, and there is a hostile wilderness in between, the people have ample incentive to be nice to each other.

Contrast this with nations of millions employing an industrial/service economy. Local ties are severed as one moves on to greener pastures. Less emphasis is placed on social interaction in the quest for material possesions. If one violates the moral codes or laws, they can vanish into the crowd of a neighboring city and start over.

Re:Two words:

[spun]

That's just the thing, and it's so odd that it needs to be pointed out so that people don't misinterpret the results as you have done. There were no taboos against those things, meaning, and I will be explicit, that those things were not seen as wrong, bad or harmful in any way. You speculate that people wouldn't do them because of the consequences, and that misses the point entirely as well as misunderstanding the whole concept of "not a taboo." People in western cultures think of those things as inherently wrong and bad because of our conditioning. It is almost impossible to understand a culture where this is not the case, as witnessed by your reply. You still see the actions as bad, and you still think that they would be regarded as bad by the society, just not "taboo." Well, that is what taboo means. Bad is exactly what they are not.

Yet despite there being, let me paraphrase "taboo", no social stigma, punishment, or judgment placed on these actions whatsoever, these actions occurred less often than in societies where these actions did have such judgments or stigma placed on them. It as is if telling people what not to do automatically gets their back up and makes them want to do it, not because they wanted to, but simply because you've told them not to.

In short, not only is society not a force that keeps people acting rationally, fairly, and equitably towards one another, it is a force that causes the evils it purports to fix. And of course, when it fails, we just didn't apply the cure correctly, we need to be harsher, stricter and more punitive! The only reason that this dysfunctional vicious circle has not lead to complete collapse is that (most) people are inherently decent, equitable, fair, reciprocal, in short: good people. Society, for the most part, only gets in the way of that innate goodness.

Re:Two words:

[neomunk]

Sometimes I get pissed when racist little cowards like you sit behind your screen and anonymously spew hate you're too scared to breath in public.

But ya know what? I just smile when I realize that your daughters and sons are mixing races as we speak. That's right, your little girls are getting knocked up by mexicans, blacks, asians, even *gasp* JEWS....

If not THIS generation, then the next (at the MOST 1 more after that) all you little racist degenerates will be bred out of existence. That puts a nice grin on my face right there.

Re:Two words:

[BakaHoushi]

Me? Mate?

You must be new here.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that humans are the only animals, where the parents attack their offspring?

I never get a straight answer for this, probably cause there isn't one. But you angry parents can keep taking out your anger on your kids, and justify it as discipline. Wouldn't want to step into that fray.

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

You speculate that people wouldn't do them because of the consequences, and that misses the point entirely as well as misunderstanding the whole concept of "not a taboo." People in western cultures think of those things as inherently wrong and bad because of our conditioning. It is almost impossible to understand a culture where this is not the case, as witnessed by your reply. You still see the actions as bad, and you still think that they would be regarded as bad by the society, just not "taboo."

Slow down there. Instead of jumping to conclusions about what behaviors I consider bad, let me enumerate some of them:

rape, murder and theft at the top of the list of bad things. Most cultures probably agree on these.

Adultery --- definitely depends on the culture.

Incest --- bad. There is a good genetic justification for not doing it, among other reasons.

Homosexuality --- I could care less what two consenting adults do together. I don't know why anyone else should.

In short, not only is society not a force that keeps people acting rationally, fairly, and equitably towards one another, it is a force that causes the evils it purports to fix.

I don't think so. Population has a tendency to grow, and people spread out. This brings conflict over land, water, animals, and other things. All of this happens before civilization. To prevent rampant killing and destruction, we come up with modern society --- a necessary evil to deal with the fact of a massive population.

Re:Two words:

[Taco Meat]

Um ... yeah. As though trying to get girls into your mother's basement wasn't enough of a deterrent.

Re:Two words:

[Taco Meat]

Nah, the guy who wrote that has a thing for other dudes. It's always the closet homos who have to put everyone else down. Look at J Edgar Hoover.

Re:Two words:

[Belial6]

Hmmm... Yet you don't feel that a parent using force. Even the kind that causes pain to make them comply, yet it is ok for the police. Besides, the police will try the 'drag you away without hurting you'. Only if they massively overpower you. As soon as you come even close to being able to defy their ability to just drag you off, they will shoot you. They will beat you down with sticks, and the public will support their behavior.

Of course your idea that locking a kid in a room for days on end is far more abusive than just giving them a spanking. You use the word abuse, but I don't think that you really know what the word means. A spanking when appropriately administered will often get the point across with far less harm than wrestling down your child on a daily basis.

What people don't seem to get is that there is one single valid purpose to punishing a child. That is to associate a particular activity with being uncomfortable. You can make your child physically uncomfortable, or you can make your child emotionally uncomfortable to punish them. Taken too far, you are either physically abusing your child, or emotionally abusing your child.

Fact is, parents do *NOT* hold all of the cards. The state increasingly gets involved in more and more of families business. Either way, if they are unable to make their child understand that something is unacceptable without resorting to emotional abuse, I pity them.

Of course there is the whole other group that doesn't punish at all. This is the most abusive thing you can do to a child.

Re:Two words:

[Belial6]

Your comment amounts to an oxymoron. Given that the sole purpose of the police is to be the branch of government that commits violence on behalf of the people, by your definition, their very existence is a failure. And the police temporarily leaving a city for a week due to severe weather, which effectively limits other peoples movements, doesn't count as a city functioning without police.

Re:Two words:

[dave1g]

I would say you are most likely right.

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

There's atleast 2 problems with this line of reasoning;

• First, it assumes that the child will not be able to learn without experiencing pain. This is just plainly wrong, to the contrary children learn the best when theyre having fun and are interested.
• Second, it assumes that all forms of learning are equally good, which they ain't.

The problem with not doing something because you are afraid you'll get spanked if you do is that if *that* is the reason, then there's no reason not to go play on the street the moment you know daddy won't discover it. In other words, behaving correctly because of fear means a high risk of behaving badly the moment that fear lifts.

In contrast, a child which stays off the street because it understands and has internalized the dangers, will be safe playing outdoors regardless of if daddy is around or not.

The tendency is for the child to behave in a way optimized to avoid being slapped. Which ain't the real goal; the real goal is to make the child behave in a way optimized to avoid being hit by a car. The two aren't the same.

Children are curious. They *want* to understand the world. Take the time to show and explain it to them. A child that *understands* the dangers of cars is a much much safer child than a child that is scared of daddy.

There are not "shortcuts" in raising a child. Deal with it. Take the time. You'll be paid back handsomely.

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

Just out of curiosity, do you advocate the same treatment for adults ?

Should your boss, your university-professor, or the policeman on the street be authorized to hit you if you misbehave ? Should we start sentencing people to physical pain (like in Sharia-law and other barbaric traditions we normally don't like to be associated with ?) Or is this something unique to children ?

I never said you shouldn't give any kind of physical response. Indeed you are correct that young children often require physical responses along with the words before they understand that words have consequences. It is perfectly OK to physically remove, by force if nessecary, the object which the kid ain't allowed to play with. It is perfectly OK to physically remove the child from the dinner-table if it misbehaves inacceptably. But neither of these involve the deliberate infliction of pain.

The younger ones are actually easier, not harder. To a 3-month-old, every rejection from the parents is a punishment, hell most of them will even take it as a punishment if you look away and refuse to interact with them if they're misbehaving. You can normally teach a 3-month-old not to bite the breast (for example) in less than half an hour by the simple expedient of removing it from the breast for half a minute every time it tries anything approaching biting.

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

It's not ok for the police to use more force than they need in order to force compliance. True, the smaller the difference in physical capacity, the more force you may need to use.

Restraining a 2-year-old without hurting him is easy for an adult. The same can't be said for a 14-year-old. But if you've been doing your job you shouldn't really need to anyway, by the time someone is 14 they should be able to understand and respect other consequences than physical ones.

Oh, and drop it with the straw-men, will you, it's pathethic. Where did I write anything about "locking a kid in a room for days on end" ? Indeed, where did I write anything about locking a kid in at all ?

You should be able to teach a kid what is unacceptable by showing it that their actions have consequences.

If you are unable to eat like a normal human being, you may not be invited to sit at the table with the others. If you are unable to handle a item with care, you may not be allowed to borrow that item at all. It's not that hard.

I agree with you that *not* showing a child that there are limits to their behaviour is abusive. Punishment ain't the only way to get that across though. (though an acceptable one, and in some cases the best one, I just don't think the punishment needs to be physical pain)

Re:Two words:

[jellomizer]

I guess I should bring up that most American Adults don't understand money as well too. But while for kids that are living at home or in college normally don;t have a strong grasp of the concept of money. For them money is mostly something that you use for the extras in life while the basic needs for your life are someone else's problem. Free Food, (or a meal plan in college), Shelter where you don't need to pay for upgrades, market levels of rent (most adult kids who pay rent to their parents pay about $400 less per month then someone outside of home). But most of the money they earn are for enjoyment. So money is seen as something that you can easily wast, because if you blow it all you will just need to work and the next week you will get paid again. You can make $25,000 a year and live well, or you can make $100,000 a year and live like a pauper. Depending how well you manage your money. Credit Cards seem like free money to a lot of people, so they get themselves in debt. I use to wonder how these people who make less then me seem to have better stuff then I do, then I remember hearing the average american is $30,000 in debt (Not including Home Mortgages (Which is considered good debt) ) And I think to myself Yea with an extra 30 thousand to spend at one I would be living like a king for years. But not at the cost of being in debt.

Re:Two words:

[jp10558]

As an example, take heavy drinking. There are two alternatives when it comes to alcohol. The first is for the parents to say 'no (or very little) alcohol allowed.' The other is to say 'if you drink a lot, you will probably embarrass yourself and in the morning you will feel terrible.' If the parents do the first, then as soon as they leave home, this restriction goes away, and you see the kind of binge drinking that is common at universities. With the second, the restrictions are self-imposed, and you see far fewer problems.

I think in this case, you also need to have a nuanced discussion regarding the law in many countries. In the US, it is illegial to drink under age 21. Whether that is a law you agree with or not, if you want to follow your second choice as a parent, you better also talk about legal consequences, bad laws vs good laws, and the entire gamut. Unless you want to give the impression that laws "are more like guidelines" and that you will help cover for breaking them.

Re:Two words:

[drinkypoo]

There are not "shortcuts" in raising a child. Deal with it. Take the time. You'll be paid back handsomely.

Just for the record, I have no intention to reproduce. I can make more of a positive impact on the world some other way, and at the same time I can be selfish and not add direct responsibility for another human being to my life :P

Re:Two words:

[Dan Hayes]

I was pointing out how people generally will act based on what authority figures have told them to do, not on any innate sense of morality. The two aren't mutually exclusive, people act in a whole bunch of different ways in different situations, as you yourself have said with regards to the Milgram experiment. And although it's a relatively recent field of study there is plenty of research out there supporting a biological basis for moral instincts.

We do not steal because our parents have educated us on why we shouldnt do it, not because we were born with any sense that stealing is bad. What about kids whose parents don't teach them that? Or whose parents are thieves themselves? Do you think that they all steal then?

Simple group dynamics leads to things we consider "morality". We dislike cheats because they take from us, and we're nice to people because in a group it pays to be friendly and one day receive help in return. All of this interaction requires a more developed memory, facial recognition skills, the ability to model other people and so on and so forth.

All of our moral laws tell us not do things. Do not steal. Do not kill. That is because our natural tendencies are to kill, steal, lie; whatever it takes to survive. Now that we live in a society where surviving is not that difficult, we rely on our society's "rules" to help us supress these "evil" desires. We no longer need to steal to eat because food is everywhere "Love thy neighbour"? But anyway, laws are about the breakdown of moral behaviour by a few, because the majority are decent people most of the time.

You're also implying that hungry people will turn into thieves. Some proof of this either historically or currently would be nice... you won't find it though.

These morals are put into place so that we do not fall back on our natural tendencies. You need to read up more on evolutionary genetics. Your position is pretty much a mirror of what the left and right used in the 70s to attack the boogeyman.

After all, if you were true, then we'd almost certainly have killed each other off thousands of years ago!

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

I am familiar with those "economic games." I do not buy into the findings though.

Games of this nature cannot reveal true human intent. Humans care about what other people think, including, and perhaps especially, researchers conducting researching on their behavior (surprise!). The wording of the research can also obtain different wordings - asking something whether they would take something, versus giving the exact same thing away, are economically equal, but psychologically different.

"Naturally selfish" is also highly subjective.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

It also likely that taboos for conditions exist because of the otherwise prevalence of such actions without society constraints. In other words, how can you taboo something that isn't happening?

Re:Two words:

[spun]

Current economic theory makes certain predictions, namely, that people will act selfishly. These games show that people don't act selfishly. These were carefully controlled double blind studies with games played for months worth of salary. The participants had no idea what the researchers "wanted" find. The studies weren't "worded" any particular way, you are obviously completely unfamiliar with the studies in question.

In one study, people were given a certain amount of money. They could keep it all, or give any amount of it to the other player. The amount given was multiplied by a small factor, say 1.25. The second player then had a chance to keep all the money, or give some back. Selfish actor theory says that people will keep all the money. They don't.

That's just one game, there are many more and they all show the same results. Selfish actor theory is wrong. You can spin that any way you like, it doesn't change the facts: the basic theory on which all of modern free market capitalism is based, is completely flawed.

You appear to want the world to be a certain way, and are willing to disregard any evidence that the world is not the way you think it should be. Certain people know that the game is rigged, and as long as people keep believing the lie, those selfish people keep reaping the benefits of a system that encourages selfishness. Those people would do anything to keep others from recognizing the truth about human nature.

Humans aren't selfish and they don't need external control to maintain civilization. There is extreme danger to the status quo if enough people were to believe that, so the agents of the status quo work hard to make sure people don't.

Re:Two words:

[Belial6]

Yes, you did say that you would lock a kid up. You said to physically drag them to their room. When the child refuses to stay there, the only way to keep them their is to lock the door, or even more abusively, hold them down. When that doesn't work the first time, you will do it again, and again. It is highly abusive.

As for your 14 year old, if 14 year olds could be reasoned with, and they would just obey the rules. This line of reasoning would also apply to 15, 17, 25, and 40 year olds. Given that, the only logical conclusion to your argument is that all police forces should be immediately disbanded. This whole idea that we can stop people from misbehaving by just asking them not to is what is pathetic. Never in history has any society successfully rid itself of people behaving badly without the threat of force, and that includes this one. It is really scary how many people think that just because they don't leave marks, their behavior is not abusing their kids.

"You should be able to teach a kid what is unacceptable by showing it that their actions have consequences."

That is exactly what a spanking (when appropriatly administered) is intended to do.

"If you are unable to eat like a normal human being, you may not be invited to sit at the table with the others. If you are unable to handle a item with care, you may not be allowed to borrow that item at all. It's not that hard."

And what do you do when the kid figures out that he can just get up to the table anyways? What do you do when the kid just takes the item whether you give them permission or not?

You have already condoned assault and battery of children. It seems that calling a spanking 'abuse' is simply saying that your shade of gray is better than someone else's.

"Punishment ain't the only way to get that across though. (though an acceptable one, and in some cases the best one, I just don't think the punishment needs to be physical pain)"

Punishment isn't the only way, but is often the safest and most effective way. My child has to date (3 years old, was 1 at the time) received a 'spanking' for only one offense. That was when he was trying to play with a light socket. This happened twice, and after a slap on the hand that was more bark than bite (think dog with a newspaper), and letting him cry it out after with no comforting, followed by a stern explanation on why it happened, he has never gone back to trying to play with outlets. We have no need to worry about child safety plugs, as it is now ingrained into him that the drawbacks of reaching for an outlet is not worth the benefits. Of course, I could have tried reasoning with him at one, and spent weeks or months, trying to convince him that he shouldn't play with outlets. Instead, I immediately associated electrical outlets with being uncomfortable, and protected him from a life threatening activity. I would say that any parents that would do less, and not protect their children from life threatening activities are abusive.

Now, the fact that I have physically punished him, he knows it is not an empty threat. When I tell him not to run into the street, he knows and understands that he will not like the consequences of disobeying. It is a little like the conversation I had with him concerning his immunizations. I explained to him that he was going to go get a little owie now so that he wouldn't get a big owie later.

What the psychologically abusive parents don't seem to get is that causing psychological pain is not somehow more noble and kinder than making someone physically uncomfortable. This modern idea that if you don't leave physical marks, you are not doing harm is down right scary.

The psychologically abusive parents also don't seem to want to accept that different children respond to different things. There are some children that you could wale on all day long, and it would not modify their behavior at all. In fact it might make them more defiant, as they would know th

Re:Two words:

[macdaddy]

This is your mother. Stop posting on this silly website and go clean your room.

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus]

parents often see their own children's behavior through rose colored glasses.

Or yellow. (snicker).

I used to socialize with a married couple who had this monstrous little 5 year old brat. They were the "hands off" type. One day, Mommy was bathing Baby Boy, and he got it into his head to urinate in her face and laugh about it. I heard her say, in a hurt voice, "Why would you do that to Mommy? Don't do that". Daddy just sat there. If it had been my kid, I would've given him a thrashing so severe people 3 states away would've called DHS on me. I quit going over there.

That was 10 years ago --- that kid has probably killed them by now.

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

A perfectly valid choice. There's advantages and disadvantages to both choices. Not having children does mean you get a *TON* more time for other stuff, it also means you get more money for other stuff, particularily if you're in a relationship. Living together as a couple slashes costs radically, while being without kids makes it possible to both work fulltime (if one so chooses). A couple needs less than 1.5 times the resources of a single person to enjoy the same standard of living. This is so because there's so many things you just don't need double off.

Re:Two words:

[Eivind]

Yes, you did say that you would lock a kid up. You said to physically drag them to their room. When the child refuses to stay there, the only way to keep them their is to lock the door, or even more abusively, hold them down. When that doesn't work the first time, you will do it again, and again. It is highly abusive.

Oh, I get it. I said it -- even though I didn't say it ? Listen, it's intellectually dishonest when you're discussing something with someone to claim that they've stated stuff that they infact never stated. What you are now claiming (which is completely different!) is that "locking a kid in their room for days on end" is a nessecary *consequence* of something I said.

It is bullshit too, by the way. Locking the door is not, infact the only way to make a child stay in their room for a short period. Nor is your hyperbole "for days on end" justified by anything I said. Infact, the normal procedure if my son, for example, makes a ruckus at the dinner-table is first to calmly tell him that unless he can eat properly, he'll have to leave the table. If he doesn't, then ask tell him to leave until he's calmed down. Normally this results in him going into the living-room, calming down, and returning within less than 3 minutes. On rare occasions I've had to physically carry him there.

I'm wondering about the (lack of) respect that you're accustomed to if children in your surrounding require physical locking for accepting something as simple as calming down and behaving normally at the dinner-table.

As for your 14 year old, if 14 year olds could be reasoned with, and they would just obey the rules. This line of reasoning would also apply to 15, 17, 25, and 40 year olds. Given that, the only logical conclusion to your argument is that all police forces should be immediately disbanded.

Either you need to accept that physical pain as punishment for children is justified, or else we need to disband all police-forces ? You do realize that that logic is rather strained ? Police *already* are not allowed to use pain for punishment. They are allowed to force compliance with orders by use of force. But that is not and will not be the same thing, regardless of your posturing to the oposite effect.

Accidentally, a large portion of the situations where police are forced to use violence are indeed partially or completely the result of poor parenting.

This whole idea that we can stop people from misbehaving by just asking them not to is what is pathetic.

That's nice. Lucky for me I never said anything of the sort. Pity for you you're arguing against your own straw-men rather than my actual position.

You have already condoned assault and battery of children.

I tire of this. I never did anything of the sort, and you know it. You do, however, constantly, indeed, this entire thread is about you beliieving that physical pain as punishment is THE ONLY way to make children understand that certain behaviour is inacceptable. In much of the western world, spanking your child is plainly illegal and counts as battery.

Unless you can stop constantly claiming that I said this and that that I never, infact, said, I'm not going to bother with further responses for you. It's perfectly fine to disagree, but I want an honest discussion, and that means arguing with what the other actually says rather than invented strawmen.

Re:Two words:

[sglines]

Well you might spend a night in jail but the state takes custody of your obnoxious kid and you make no effort to reclaim them. Works for me.

Re:Two words:

[vic-traill]

As a parent, you're screwed either way.

Melfi: Maybe AJ knew the rope was too long and his suicide attempt was just a cry for help.

Tony: Or maybe he's just a fuckin' idiot ... which historically *has* been the case.

Even if you know you're screwed either way, sometimes it's still nice just to be right.

Kids these days (?)

[epee1221]

So kids aren't used to dealing with "You can only be on the phone for this long" and such restrictions?

Re:Kids these days (?)

[Opportunist]

Show me one parent that knows more about cells than their kids. One.

Re:Kids these days (?)

[LiquidCoooled]

That's the problem, they spend 30 seconds texting or calling to simply grunt "im coming out now" and then put the phone away.

The problem is they do this several times an hour.

My son gets credit once a month for his phone, the first few times it was gone within a day.
After a few times of this hes thinking ahead, now it lasts him a couple of weeks.

On the plus(ish) side of this, newer phones are gaining bluetooth text messages and sending things - it saves them texting and calling each other from opposite ends of the street corner.

Re:Kids these days (?)

[aamcf]

Pretty much every parent in my office knows more about cells than their kids.

Of course, I do work for Openwave.

Re:Kids these days (?)

[RobertLTux]

so exactly how small of a cell phone jammer do you have access to?? (say one with a 7 meter range??)

227 texts a day?!

[bigtangringo]

What the hell? Doesn't she have anything better to do?

Re:227 texts a day?!

[antiaktiv]

With the average text taking half a minute to type, she spent almost two hours per day texting. Now, how much time does the average teenager spend on AIM or myspace?

Re:227 texts a day?!

[carabela]

So hitting F5 on Slashdot regularly is better?

Re:227 texts a day?!

[bjorniac]

Possibly, or she could have been mass-mailing them - sending a text to many numbers at once, and getting charged for each. Either way, it's a travesty just how much is charged for text messages. Someone more geeky^H^H^H^H^H knowledgeable than I can probably fill you in the the cost per byte or whatever...

Re:227 texts a day?!

[Coopjust]

Apparently not...

Marti Rubenstein, said she has seen Sofia and her friends text each other even when they're in the same room.

Am I the only one who finds that mind numbingly stupid? Why not just... I don't know... talk to the person? Too much effort?

Re:227 texts a day?!

[no_pets]

It's the electronic equivalent of passing notes.

Re:227 texts a day?!

[romcabrera]

Maybe private conversations. Never happened you have been talking in a group and would like to say something privately to someone in the same room?

Re:227 texts a day?!

[ls -la]

Doesn't she have anything better to do? Did you go to public school?

Re:227 texts a day?!

[jZnat]

Oh yeah, SMS is real secure...

Re:227 texts a day?!

[stinerman]

How else would I get my futurama fix?:

X-Fry: But this is HDTV. It's got better resolution than the real world.
X-Bender: Yes! I got the most! I win X-Mas!

Re:227 texts a day?!

[Stu101]

Yeah but it doesnt cost you over $1000, just a worn out F5 key. Unless of course you use a per byte setup.

Re:227 texts a day?!

[YrWrstNtmr]

What the hell? Doesn't she have anything better to do?

She was multitasking. At least half of those were as she was driving to and from school.

Re:227 texts a day?!

[jacksonj04]

It's not half bad actually, even only over GSM. If you're on a network with GPRS capacity then it's even better.

The only trouble is people picking up your phone and reading your messages. Keep it in your pocket and even that is solved!

Re:227 texts a day?!

[ottothecow]

In her car that her parents also bought for her and pay the insurance and repair for so that she has absolutely no idea what the real world costs of owning a car are. That way its easier for her to be reckless and not worry about the $1000 repair bill she runs up while using her driving time to run up her $1000 texting bill.

mmmm great...

Re:227 texts a day?!

[Karthikkito]

If they're SMSing to pass notes, I'm not sure they're of the mindset to intercept said messages. =)

Re:227 texts a day?!

[Ajehals]

Compared to passing a note over? I would say yes.... But still, texting someone in the same room, I wouldnt dream of it, but then I still leave a room when I use my phone out of some apparently skewed sense of being polite.

Re:227 texts a day?!

[Babbster]

Walking out of the room so you can talk to your mistress in private is not "polite." It's "shrewd" or "cunning."

Re:227 texts a day?!

[Anonymous Coward]

A family friend's daughter texted (with verizon) for over 12 thousand text messages in one billing cycle. She had the unlimited texts to other verizon members plan, and the extra charge (paid on top of the usual monthly charge) was something like $3.

Her mother took her phone away anyway, just on general principle. When she called verizon operator to make sure that the 12000 text number was accurate, the representative lady told her that she had never seen anything like it before in her life.

Re:227 texts a day?!

[WannaBeGeekGirl]

What the hell? Doesn't she have anything better to do? I was hoping someone would do the math on the text per units of time because I was too lazy to. Thats sadly impressive.

When I was her age the best equivalent way to waste time communicating with friends I can think of was writing notes. (There were intricate ways of folding them too.) I remember being thrilled when my dad brought a shredder home and I could dispose of all the evidence of immature things my friends had written about each other in case I got hit by a bus before I could tear up my daily notes.

On my best note-passing days though I think I only used 7 notebook pages. Also, I only wrote notes during school. Granted way back then the US Postal Service was a bit more efficient than days of late and you could ride your bike to anywhere in my hometown in 5 minutes.

Then again, I didn't want to do that math to figure out the rate of texting you did. I guess my laziness could be a lifetime trait, which would account for my low note quota. I'd rather talk to my friends than write notes or text them, today, back then, etc... She would pwn me. Ha ha.

Re:227 texts a day?!

[Cederic]

half a minute? have you seen the average 13yo on a mobile phone?

they're at anything up to 200wpm and the texts can be 2-10 words long.

(wpm count made up.)

Yep

[LBArrettAnderson]

That happened to me once. I figured "oh, at 10 cents per text message, it's no big deal." Then 2 months later my parents saw that I had texted enough to raise the phone bill $200 (mostly thanks to the AIM client that my phone had, which uses a text message for each IM sent and received, as well as another message to connect, and I believe another message to disconnect as well). My parents made me pay for it, of course.

A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Anonymous Coward]

Solution: forbid her from texting her bff Jill.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Pluvius]

My thoughts exactly. It's not really news if a major wireless carrier is heavily advertising a package that would specifically combat this problem.

Rob

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Miseph]

Am I the only one who thinks that ad should be advocating for parents to completely ban their children from text messages?

I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to spell words like "you", "your/you're", and will use internet abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers.

It scares the shit out of me that people think that's funny, and are apparently willing to pay so that their kids can do more of it.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Lost Engineer]

Isn't the idk in the school paper thing a bit apocryphal. I mean, seriously, these kids don't have spell check? See I could have just made a typo here, but Firefox caught me.

I think the bigger problem is that these particular kids have no idea that there is a difference between formal writing and oh I don't know lets call it dumbass writing, like I'm doing now.

This is compounded by the fact that most adults don't bother writing formally these days either.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[plasmacutter]

You think that's bad?

I have a second hand friend (friend of friend) who is a serious WoW-head (i'm more casual). when i hear him in vent he SPEAKS those abbreviations.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[servognome]

"Lawlz"

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"...and will use internet abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers."

I get your point about the you/your/you're comment. But the second point you brought up is nothing new. Have you ever tried writing an english paper using words like 'aint' or 'brung'?

"Am I the only one who thinks that ad should be advocating for parents to completely ban their children from text messages?"

I wouldn't go to that extreme, no. Children still need proper education.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[da007]

I completely agree. Text messages are the newspeak of Orwell's 1984. Parents don't seem to care that their children are spending most of their time focusing on meaningless dribble instead of education.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[ottothecow]

Let me preface this by saying that I attend one of the best universities in the country. One of my friends (also happens to play a lot of video games and use IM) seems to be completely unable to use the proper form of your/you're in his informal writing. In formal writing he seems to manage to do it (or more...word's grammar check is decent at picking the right form) but his informal writing is just plagued with that sort of error. I remember when we were on vacation abroad and he was writing an email to a girl he had a thing for...we forced him to correct upwards of 3 glaring errors (that made him look like a total dumbfuck) in the contents of a 5 line (total including the greeting and signature lines) email. Really its just embarrassing, especially at the speeds a competent person can type, the extra 2 characters (or the same amount in there/their) that anyone outside of elementary school should make the mistake.

Even when texting, with almost all phones having functional predictive text, it is not hard at all to use proper words in their entirety.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to spell words like "you", "your/you're", and will use internet abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers.

As a teacher...this is true. Have had other teachers show me papers where their students do this & it makes me shake my head. The funny part is that the teacher can't fail the student...the parents will come down on the teacher like a load of bricks. The funniest part is when the students arrive in their freshman college classes & pull this BS.

At every school in the district...cell phones are forbidden to be used. I see them being used in my classes & ask once for them to be put away. The second time...they are taken to the office at the end of the day. The principal is paid the big bucks...he/she can take the heat for "the parents little angels" not being able to follow simple directions like no cell phone usage.

Am I the only one who thinks that ad should be advocating for parents to completely ban their children from text messages?

You & I...along with fewer & fewer people...agree with each other. On the other hand...when "parents" are weak-willed & unwilling to be parents...you expect them to stand up to their "little angels"? Not going to happen. I constantly put up with children verbally attacking me & others for trying to make them mind & do the job their parents are not. Unlike their parents...I know what the word "NO" means in many languages & am willing to tell their "little angels" that no matter what you think...NO means you can't do that...no matter what you think. They don't like that answer...the principal will explain to them what "NO" means.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[ThousandStars]

I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to spell words like "you", "your/you're", and will use internet abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers.

I've heard similar ideas, but just because I've heard them doesn't make them true; most such stories sound like another version of old men waving their canes and telling those damn kids to get off their lawn. This article from Ars reports on an Irish report essentially agreeing with what you say, but Ars also cites a Toronto report contradicting the idea that young people are losing their ability to spell based on IM.

This article from Technology Review argues that the increasing pervasiveness of writing in students' lives is actually improving their language skills rather than the opposite. Given these contrasting viewpoints, I'm not sure what is the "right" answer, but I bring a healthy amount of skepticism to any claim like the one you're repeating. Most people I know spell fairly well if they care or if what they're doing is important and don't if the inverse is true. I'm part of the "txting" generation, but as my website probably indicates, I'm probably a reasonably proficient writer. (Anecdotes, blah blah, yes, I'm aware, but they help make the point I was raising above).

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[mgoren]

Awhile ago I was reviewing internship apps. Almost every application contained blatant grammatical or spelling errors. (Many people also misspelled our company name or were applying for random positions that did not exist at our company.) One person ended the cover letter by writing "thank u". Apparently people simply do not understand that different writing styles are appropriate for different settings.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[gEvil (beta)]

I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to spell words like "you", "your/you're"

Hell, I've heard of "editors" of hugely popular technology websites that don't bother learning those things because it makes the site less "real"...

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[dn15]

I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to spell words like "you", "your/you're", and will use internet abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers.

Have you been in any university courses lately? There is an amazing number of people in supposed "higher education" who don't know the difference between their/they're/there and your/you're. Sadly, the phenomenon is not isolated to prolific text-messagers either. I saw it far too many times for that to be the case. Heck, just a couple days ago I saw a bumper sticker proclaiming that the car's occupants were proud "GrantParent's" of a kid at a local high school. Good grief.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Tickletaint]

Some of the most brilliant people I know are dyslexic and can't spell worth shit. It's just that their intelligence isn't the sort that lends itself to remembering the difference between "you're" and "your."

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[demonlapin]

GrantParent's

Well, while the apostrophe is unforgivable, perhaps the misspelling was simply that they sponsored tuition for a child at that school. Thus, "Grant" Parents.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Vicissidude]

The funny part is that the teacher can't fail the student...the parents will come down on the teacher like a load of bricks.

Let them fail. The parents need to know the truth about their little darling who can't do no wrong. Further, they need to know the effect of their bad parenting. Better to flunk some class in high school than a class in college.

You seem to have no problem handing problems to the principal. Hand these ones over as well.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[WilliamSChips]

Almost all phone carriers have restrictive limits on the length of text messages.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[VGPowerlord]

Verizon is advertising a package that combats this as well... I didn't find their commercial on youtube, but it's the one with the mom being able to quit her second job because they can now afford texting, pix, and flix... whatever the latter two are.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[WilliamSChips]

No, Newspeak was designed to make it difficult to impossible to express political opinions aside from "Ingsoc doubleplusgood". TXT MSG was designed as an ad-hoc compression scheme to make messages shorter and quicker to type. And frankly I'd prefer my kids focus on "meaningless dribble" than on the best way to build thousands of nuclear weapons and ruin the environment like we did in the seventies.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

FWIW, I post a fair bit on various technical Usenet groups. Several of them are aimed at helping beginners to learn things like new programming languages.

We mostly get people trying their best, but you can spot the "do my homework please" morons a mile off. You also see kids turn up every now and then who post using txt spk. Unsurprisingly, the almost universal reaction from the volunteers posting replies is to ignore them.

This is partly because if they can't be bothered to write properly, they convey a lack of respect that makes them less appealing targets for volunteered help than those who make an effort. (C.f. people who post questions on Usenet, but ask people to reply by e-mail because they don't have time to check the group, kthx.)

However, it's also because most of the messages posted using "clever" abbreviations are simply unintelligible. Helping those people would require more effort, simply because you would first have to work out what they actually needed, where those who write in clear English (in the case of the English-language groups I follow) have already run that roadblock.

So in this case, a lack of basic communication skills and trying to be too clever in an inappropriate forum really is directly harming the person posting the message.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[geminidomino]

can now afford texting, pix, and flix... whatever the latter two are. Photos and videos.

HTH.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[drsmithy]

I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to spell words like "you", "your/you're", and will use internet abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers.

Spelling and grammar (especially grammar) were heading downhill long before every kid had a mobile phone. I'll agree the problem has been getting worse in recent years (and that "TXTing" is probably exacerbating the situation), but the stage has been set since the mid-late 80s.

At least in Australia, grammar more complicated than identifying verbs and nouns hasn't been given more than a cursory nod in most schools for about twenty years. Spelling hasn't fared much better - even 10 years ago the typical example of "you're" vs "your" was becoming common.

Personally, I see three main culprits - the first is TV replacing books as "idle entertainment", the second (more the last decade) is the plethora of websites with atrocious spelling and grammar providing a massive feedback loop and the third is the education environment (teachers who have bad English skills and curriculums that basically don't try to teach much more than speaking the language).

Sadly, mathematics is going the same way, with calculators becoming "essential" in primary school years and the ability of people to do problems in their heads more complicated than adding double digit numbers - and especially things like manipulating fractions (eg: for working out percentages) - practically considered black magic to the average 25 year old.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Triv]

But the second point you brought up is nothing new. Have you ever tried writing an english paper using words like 'aint' or 'brung'?

Actually, yes. In high school (this was, what? the mid-nineties or so) and I aced 'em. There were a number of reasons for this:

1. My analysis of the literature was backed up from textual sources and properly cited.
2. My teacher appreciated my teenage attempt to craft my own literary style and cut me some slack.
3. I had a firm grasp of how to use meter, tone, timbre and rhythm to affect the weight of my argument.

There's a difference between "ain't" and "lol". Ain't as a construction exists as a word because people speak that way, and I firmly believe that learning how to write persuasively means writing the way you speak - fluidly, rhythmically and emphatically. lol is just lazy, doesn't serve any literary purpose and perverts the language in a different way than colloquial contractions like "ain't" do.

I mean, if it were up to me I'd take five points off for every txtspeak on a student's paper on the spot. But there's a line between affect and laziness.

--Triv

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"lol is just lazy, doesn't serve any literary purpose and perverts the language in a different way than colloquial contractions like "ain't" do."

Funny, but when I went to high school in the mid-nineties I was given a very similar pitch about the word "ain't".

In any event, I'll grant you there's a difference, but it's not as big as you're making it out to be. As lol becomes part of everyday lexicon, it becomes as 'useful' as words like ain't. It's difficult to see it now, but eventually 'lol' will get associated with a certain type of people the same way "ain't" is associated with low-brow redneck folks. When it's used to artfully describe a person, as you did with ain't, you'll 'ace' your exams.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[mmortal03]

What's wrong with using "etc."? lol, j/k.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[NeMon'ess]

*winces* DIAF

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[mmortal03]

Wow, didn't expect that suggestion.  Thanks, though, but I'll pass.  Next time I'll remember to add in the "badum-bum-CHING!" tag, just for you.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[barzok]

I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to spell words like "you", "your/you're", and will use internet abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers.

I graduated from high school well before SMS came around, and IM was exclusively within the AOL client, but there were plenty of kids who didn't know your/you're and there/their/they're even then.

Hell, I've worked with several MBAs who can't get it right, who went to high school "when things were better" supposedly.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Emberpyro]

I think TV is overly blamed tbh (oh noes, a tla!), a lot of kids still read books, and those who'd rather watch TV should probably have their parents spoken to. Even if the kid doesn't enjoy books there're other options...my parents bought my brother Monkey Island 1 and 2 because he really just didn't like reading, but liked playing computer games, and you kinda have to read in order to play the games! Wrt (eep, another!) education I'm just approaching the end of my first year at University, so I've pretty much just come out of secondary school (high school for you Americans ;) ), and I didn't get taught *anything* about grammar in English, and only very little about spelling. Literally nothing. Take, for example, the "English language" GCSE. You'd think it'd contain, say, language, right? No, it's practically the exact same as the English literature GCSE. In fact, I actually have *no* idea what the difference was supposed to be, half our coursework counted towards both and the exams were similar, just one was on a set text we'd already read, and the other was on a newspaper article we'd not seen before. In fact, spelling, punctuation, and grammar hardly counted towards anything in coursework or exam for either GCSE. Then again, I'd've thought that it'd be a little better over there in the US, I was part of a trial of the SAT over here and the English part of that was what I wish English tests were like over here. They actually tested language skills (ie, which word should replace the underlined, which word in this sentence is incorrect, which word is defined by this sentence etc.). Ah well, I'll continue to do my bit by correcting people on irc and pissing them off. ;) Pedantry is fun, there's the incentive to learn English! PS. I do apologise for my overuse of commas...perhaps had I been taught how to use them there would be fewer in my post? Who knows. ;)

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Set the phone to require a password to use SMS, web browsing and any other extra-cost service.
2) Don't tell your kid the password.
3) Profit!!!

(The captcha for this message is "benefit".)

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Achromatic1978]

No, the messaging protocol SMS has restrictions on text message length, nothing to do with carrier. 160 characters. HOWEVER, you can chain at least three, sometimes up to 10 messages, to get between 460 and 1500 (there's a slight overhead in doing so), at once. This is often device dependent.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[NeMon'ess]

nah I got the joke and added my own. I should've put a smiley at the end or something.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Anonymous Coward]

i prefer "lowl"
lawl just sounds stupid

15 cents each?!

[mutende]

at a rate of 15 cents apiece

Sounds very expensive to me. Here in Denmark the normal price for 1 sms is less than 4 cents, and some operators even offer flatrate...

Re:15 cents each?!

[ottothecow]

they used to be something like 5 to send free to recieve. Then it was 5 to send 5 to recieve, then it was 10 to send 5 to recieve.

Now it is 15c each way. I dont see how they can justify charging that much for a tiny exchange of data. It has risen WAY faster than the rate of inflation on a technology that should become cheaper (look at how minutes have come down) and it is ridiculous. My guess is that the only reason it works for the phone companies to do this is that the first people to start using them heavily are the kids with their parents buying them mobile phones. They dont have to pay per message so they dont think about the ridiculous costs (look at how much data is in a text message and how much a provider charges for data usage and it becomes clear how much of a rip off it is).

Re:15 cents each?!

[ihavnoid]

Sounds very expensive to me. Here in Korea the normal price for 1 sms is around 3 cents, but no operators offer flatrate, due to its abuse by spammers.

At first, in Korea, all major carriers had provided flat rate plans, but once cell phone spammers started to abuse them (custom SMS spamming software + PC + flat rate plan = unlimited spamming capability), they quickly removed it from their plan list.
Seriously, I used to recieve 20+ SMS spams a day on the worst ages, but once carriers started to provide spam filtering (free of charge, can disable any time), the spam rate dropped to less than one per week.

However, there still are service plans that even provide 1000+ free messages per month, and it seems to be enough for most people.

Anyway, flatrate seems to be troublesome, and it seems to be (sort of) surprising that US carriers have those kind of rates.

Re:15 cents each?!

[Yez70]

Anyone caught spamming SMS on a flatrate plan would probably lose their cell service permanently and be subject to prosecution in the US. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone who gets SMS spam actually - in the US.

Flatrate SMS is not offered on pre-paid plans/phones.

Re:15 cents each?!

[stoolpigeon]

don't think I've ever heard of anyone who gets SMS spam actually - in the US.
 
you have now. i get them all the time.

Re:15 cents each?!

[Anonymous Coward]

You pay to recieve, too? Consumer protection here would never stand for that (domestic, anyway). There's been talk of enforcing limits on roaming charges across EU nations as well. Yay socialism, I guess.

Re:15 cents each?!

[loraksus]

That's the USA for you. SMS prices are stupidly expensive here if you don't have one of the flat rate plans.
There isn't a single cell phone company despised by most of their customers, but ETF fees and the fact that they all suck is why they keep their customers. Given the fact that a SMS puts far less load on the cell network than a phone call, the rates for SMS are completely bullshit.
Oh, and now we all get to pay for spam SMS messages since the carriers decided to all implement their new policy of charging for inbound shit you don't want and can't turn off.
Cool eh?

Re:15 cents each?!

[spirit of reason]

Really, it's just simple economics. If people are willing (albeit begrudgingly) to pay a higher price for the privilege, the phone companies will charge it. If they started seeing consumers flocking to competitors with lower SMS prices, they'd reconsider, but then you might be making sacrifices elsewhere.

Re:15 cents each?!

[Anonymous Coward]

they used to be something like 5 to send free to recieve. Then it was 5 to send 5 to recieve, then it was 10 to send 5 to recieve. Now it is 15c each way. I dont see how they can justify charging that much for a tiny exchange of data. And that is why you're not executive material.

Re:15 cents each?!

[mikkelm]

That would never work in the US.

If you send more than 5 text messages a month on your unlimited plan, you must be downloading torr^W^W^W^Wspamming people

Re:15 cents each?!

[Lost Engineer]

You know the adage, in America 100 years is a long time, and in Europe 100 miles is a long way. The only reason we even have nationwide cell coverage from sea to shining freakin' sea is that we pay a bit more. If anything, our current service represents a remarkable triumph of the free market, the likes of which we don't see nearly often enough.

Re:15 cents each?!

[jZnat]

Kinda hard to flock to another cell carrier when you're stuck in a 2+ year contract with an absurdly high cancellation fee. And then there's the fact that pretty much all the mobile telcos will do this as well...

Re:15 cents each?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for a couple of trips in the mountains (out in the middle of nowhere, national park-like mountains), and in a few underground shops in Paris, I don't remember any case of not having cell-phone signal in the last seven years or so, anywhere in Europe. That's while going from Romania to the UK and pretty much every country in between, with the same cell-phone and the same GSM card (during each trip, of course, I've changed the phone several times).

Re:15 cents each?!

[mrchaotica]

...charging for inbound shit you don't want and can't turn off.

Actually, you can turn off SMS messages. In fact, back when I first got my contract with Cingular, I called up customer service and told them to turn off SMS and web access entirely.

Re:15 cents each?!

[maxume]

Just get an auxiliary phone:

http://virginmobileusa.com/rates/home.do

1000 messages a month for $10. (or course, they go to $0.05 per after that)

Re:15 cents each?!

[Anonymous Coward]

In Ireland thanks to a J2ME program called AFT we get our text messages for a quarter of a cent each, or 1c each (depending on network). Id love to bring it to a few other countries too, basically it uses GPRS to send webtexts provided free by the operators. VoipBuster is also supported so it should work in the UK too

Check out http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=20 54984709

Re:15 cents each?!

[geminidomino]

I did too. And the scumbag carrier charged me for them, until I made them put me on "admin messages only."

Re:15 cents each?!

[Alioth]

Hold on... you have to pay to receive texts? Some of which will be unsolicited? I wholly undestand charging to send a text but charging to receive one?

Re:15 cents each?!

[MrZaius]

Verizon offers a flatrate, for less than $20/phone and $30/family share plan per month. It's far higher than it ought to be, but had this girl's parents been paying attention and added that, the problem wouldn't have happened.

Re:15 cents each?!

[ottothecow]

the best part is that you can even send them for free from the service providor's website.

I once (back in my younger days...and when the prices were lower) went to www.t-mobile.com/messaging and sent my friend a series like "hah" "this" "costs" "you" "money"

Unlimited SMS..

[tgatliff]

You know Verizon does have unlimited SMS plans for only $15 per month... Just a thought for someone paying a $1100 phone bill... :-)

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[Parlett316]

And free texting in network.

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[bwalling]

If 1 = $0.15 and = $15, then why is Verizon billing anyone $1100? The max bill should be $15. If I were selling something at $1 for 1 or $10 for 30, I certainly would charge you $12 for 32 of them instead of $32. If I charged you $32, you'd call me sleazy and you wouldn't tolerate it. Why have we been tolerating this from cell phone companies all this time?

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[loraksus]

Because they all suck equally and there really isn't an alternative.
And the assholes who run the companies use that to their advantage.

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you mail 6,807 postcards to the same address, the post office won't bundle them for you and give you a lower price. *You* have to place them in a packet and then they'll bill you for a packet rate. Same here: you have to tell Verizon in advance which plan you're purchasing.

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[cduffy]

$15/month just for text messages? That's insane!

Cricket, MetroPCS and others include unlimited text messaging (as well as unlimited domestic voice calls) in plans running $45/month or less.

I really, really don't understand why more folks don't get off of the major carriers (unless they travel much or need data service functionality the little guys don't provide).

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[hazem]

They don't all suck.

I have been happy with Virgin Mobile for quite some time. They were my original service and I only switched to Verizon when I moved to the Oregon coast where only AT&T and Verizon worked. As soon as my contract ended, I switched back to VM.

No contracts, Pay-as-you-go, but also with monthly plans. I pay less than Verizon because there are no extra fees, charges, "FCC mandated", etc (rather it's built in to the advertised price, not tacked on after the fact).

The phones are inexpensive too. The one I'm using now was $20 and works great. If it breaks or I lose it, I can just go get another one. Fortunately, they finally started making phones that don't look like kids' phones.

Coverage is great. They use sprint's network, so everywhere you can use sprint, it works just fine.

Texts are 5 cents each unless you buy one of the bundles. One has 1000 SMSs for $9.99.

My only complaint about VM is that, at least with the cheap phones, there is no way to download/upload your phonebook.

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[loraksus]

I should of have clarified that - all the contract plans suck.
People using pay as you go can switch pretty much any time, which tends to keep the amount of BS down.
People on contracts are abused by the cell phone providers because they know their "loyal customers" won't switch because of the ETF.

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[Jeff DeMaagd]

If 1 = $0.15 and (infinite?) = $15, then why is Verizon billing anyone $1100. The max bill should be $15.

I agree that phone companies are shady in general, but I don't think that's a good argument. The $15 plan is something you have to subscribe to. Why would anyone buy an unlimited plan if there was no threat of ever going over that cost if they chose not to buy that plan? That's kind of the risk a person takes by going with a lower cost plan.

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[Doppler00]

I totally agree. The main problem is that the FCC auctioned off all the air waves without accountability to how they are used. Charging a customer $1,100 for maybe 5 seconds of access to a small frequency band is price gouging. I would contact the Better Business Bureau about it myself. Of course, I wouldn't make that mistake. At least with T-Mobile, you can press #MSG# and get your current usage.

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[my $anity 0]

Sure, but maybe capping it at $30 or $50 would make more sense, to avoid bad publicity from WTF sized bills, and still make it worthwhile to use the $15 unlimited plan?

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[raehl]

Short answer:

Because we're dumb.

Long answer:

Each text message is a separate purchase. If I'm selling at $1 for one and $10 for 30, and you buy one, then come back in a half hour and buy another, and then come back in a half hour and buy another, a few days later, I'm still charging you $1 for each purchase.

But if you come in and buy 30 at once and then don't come back, I charge you $10.

Nothing sleazy about that.

SMS spamming?

[deftcoder]

I know that certain companies like Cingular (now ATT) let you send text messages to people via email... e.g. theirnumber@my.cingular.com or something similar to that.

Don't most of these companies charge on incoming messages, too? Wouldn't you just be able to spam the crap out of somebody's number to run up their bill?

In any other industry, I'd expect them to have this base covered... but you never know with the phone industry.

Re:SMS spamming?

[nsanders]

Sadly, yes. Most companies ALLOW text messages on their phone even if you don't have it in your plan. If other people send you messages you will be billed their fixed rate per message (incoming), even if you don't reply. If someone else has unlimited text messaging they could effectively start spamming people (everyone remember the old pager bombs?) with the consequence of massive phone bills.

Re:SMS spamming?

[stinerman]

On my prepaid Cingular phone there is no way to stop an incoming message. You have to pay for it ($.05) whether you want it or not. For instance, I often send text messages to phones via pidgin-im. If anyone were to send messages to my phone in that manner, they could run my balance to zero in short order.

Re:SMS spamming?

[Clete2]

This is why a lot of people opt-out of even being able to receive them at all. I know of many people who have called their providers and removed the text feature altogether.

Re:SMS spamming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, where do you live in? Paying for INCOMING messages??!! And I always have thought that we have so bad in Poland.

Re:SMS spamming?

[Anonymous Coward]

What was your number again?

Re:SMS spamming?

[stinerman]

867-5309

Re:SMS spamming?

[loraksus]

New policy between all the carriers in the USA. Basically one company started charging and the rest followed their lead.
Now you get charged for spam messages.
CURVA!

Re:SMS spamming?

[mcrbids]

If someone else has unlimited text messaging they could effectively start spamming people (everyone remember the old pager bombs?) with the consequence of massive phone bills.

I was chatting with a chick down at the local airport, with my flight instructor. She was complaining about her ex-boyfriend who would call her randomly from different phones and harass her. So, I cracked a joke, offering to write a quick program to send 10,000 text messages to his phone "don't freaking call me you farkquad" or something. I didn't even think about the 10,000 - as a software engineer I routinely have to deal with algorithms working with millions to billions of possibilities or data elements, so 10,000 just seemed like a "get his attention" sorta small number.

But then they ran the numbers on it, and figured that 10,000 messages would probably cost the guy $1,500 bucks! (As I've posted elsewhere I've had unlimited text messaging since forever, so the cost of it never actually occurred to me)

Oh shiznit! But it's such a stupid simple hack, I could do it in about 3 lines of code! It would take my midrange laptop perhaps 20 minutes to run and send all the messages! To make it 10 times worse would only take one additional keystroke!

Sometimes it amazes me how truly vulnerable we all are to knowledgeable people with malicious intent.

No, I'm not advocating any "mob justice" or anything - but like a pimply teen, those of us "with the power" of knowledge need to understand our true strength and behave accordingly.

Re:SMS spamming?

[b0s0z0ku]

CURVA!

It's KURWA to you, guy!

Re:SMS spamming?

[b0s0z0ku]

Oh shiznit! But it's such a stupid simple hack, I could do it in about 3 lines of code! It would take my midrange laptop perhaps 20 minutes to run and send all the messages!

I hope to God that they implement some sort of rate limiting per IP and/or per phone #. If you try to auto-send 10,000 messages to 202-555-1234, it should be blocked after the first 2 or 3.

-b.

Re:SMS spamming?

[Anonymous Coward]

one acronym for you: WTF?!

i think as soon as this shit starts ver here in "old europe" (germany, to be specific), i'll throw my cellphone into the bin. what a rip-off. but i don't think they'll start with that shit here, from what i've heard, there are only a few big providers in the US, but over here it's a fiercely targeted market with literally dozens of competitors; every bigger supermarket-chain has their own cellphone subdivision (seriously, there's an ALDI-phone company...).

paying for unsolicited messages? nice...

Re:SMS spamming?

[sglane81]

I write stuff like this at work for monitoring network outages and performance. The text messages enter their system through a standard SMTP (email) server and limit your connections just like a normal mail server. If you flood their mail server, you will get "too many connections from your host" responses and your messages will not go through after the first few.

Also, almost all carriers have a gateway like <number>@messaging.sprintpcs.com (sprint), <number>@vtext.com (verizon), etc. It has been done like this since at least 2001.

There are methods for getting around this, but I don't want to give anyone ideas :)

Re:SMS spamming?

[azenpunk]

if you don't open the message you aren't charged for it. my question is how do i prevent my phone from telling the network that it opened a text message?

This is really nothing new..

[Philus]

..just a different way of doing it. Sounds like kids still needs to be taught about the consequences of their actions.

Re:This is really nothing new..

[GiMP]

True. I remember when my family first got a computer, my parents signed up with America Online for the free trial. Not because we planned to use AOL, but because it was "free".

Well, in those days, you paid about $3 per hour, and the trial was for 50 hours.

Imagine my parent's surprise when the usage was over 100 hours that month...

Re:This is really nothing new..

[Zen]

Yeah, the kids need to be taught about consequences of their actions, but more than that the parents need to be taught that the kids are THEIR responsibility and need to be taught what is right and wrong, and if they can't control the kids then the kids shouldsn't have cell phones. I can't stand all these parents who are shocked at the bills their kids rack up and then call up the press to get an article somewhere in the hopes that the company will drop their bill because of the bad publicity. You created the problem, now figure out a way to deal with it. Too many people blaming society for things that are solely their responsibility.

I only have a baby, can't really relate to this exactly. However, I have many friends/coworkers who have teenagers, and I have to say that if I was in the market for a cell phone for a kid I wouldn't get a prepaid cell phone, but I'd get something like the disney phone. It's close to what I'd want, but not exact. Phone companies should really cater to the product that parents want, and not flat rates that make them the most money when the user's go over it.

Here's what I would want in a phone for a teenager:
Fully featured cell phone (wouldn't want the kid to feel like a reject with one of those four button phones)
Flat monthly minutes (rollover is preferred in the unlikely event they aren't all used)
'Normal" features such as free roaming, long distance, etc
The kicker is that when the included minutes or texts are used up, the phone does not allow any incoming or outgoing text messages, and only allows phone calls to predesignated password protected numbers (home, parents cell, etc). If the kid tries to send a text message or make a call to an unapproved number it will prompt for a password or request a calling card / prepaid card number to add extra minutes.

This way it is completely impossible to go over your minutes in a month, except by just a couple for emergency/calling home usage which would never amount to more than $5/month. I don't know why there isn't a product like this on the market, although Disney does come close from what I heard about it. This is really what parents want even though they don't know it yet because they haven't ever seen it. No parent really wants to give their kid free reign with a cell phone.

Re:This is really nothing new..

[fmobus]

My ex-girlfriend's(1) family had a similar problem with their teenage (15ish) kid. Way too much phone-calls, SMS(2) and even collect-calls (from pre-paid-cellphone owning friends). The solution for them was moving the entire family to the same operator with a family-plan. Calls between the family's number were flat-rate, paid by the "master" account. Each daughter had a monthly allowance of something like $20, beyond which they would need to reload with pre-paid cards (but could still call family under the flat-rate). Yes, it worked perfectly ever since, and everyone is happy (which is sorta rare in telecom business, eh?).

(1) she dumped me when I stared reading slashdot
(2) even thou, in my country, we NEVER pay for incoming SMS, unlike US.

About the cost...

[MoHaG]

And I thought South-Afica was expensive. SMSs cost max ZAR0.75 (+-US$0.11) here and as low as ZAR0.25 (US$0.04) without any SMS bundles...

Well...

[Xtense]

So i guess i'm pretty much alone on the whole i-hate-those-newfangled-cellphones-i-only-want-som ething-that-can-call-and-receive-calls front.

Oh well, live and learn.

Re:Well...

[rob1980]

i-only-want-som ething-that-can-call-and-receive-calls

Like this?

Re:Well...

[NormalVisual]

No, you're not. I have the cheapest-of-the-cheap phone I could get, and a pre-paid plan with minutes that are good for a year. I pay about $100-$150 or so per year (depending on how many minutes I use) and really have no need for texting or any other extra features.

Re:Well...

[Xtense]

Ahh, good to know that there's somebody else here :) .

While I understand the whole cellphone-revolution thingy, I just don't need all that crap that's currently being merged into cells. Why would I need a camera, an mp3 player, worse, the Internet on my phone? I'm not a multimedia borg (yet), I can do most of this stuff comfortably at home, preferably on my PC. I'm not a conservatist, mind you (well, i AM reading slashdot, after all :) ), but some of the new, popular stuff just doesn't appeal to me. And yes, I do understand that this changes me into some sort of a basement-dweller who sees sunlight for 2 hours a day max, but, frankly, i don't give a damn. But while I'm neutral towards most cellphone-people, those who ultimately piss me off to no end are those, who play crappy songs on even crappier cellphone speakers so loud, that all you hear is some goddamn distorted white noise. And noooo, it doesn't stop there, they're bobbing and shaking about, waving hands, singing lyrics to the top of their voices, annoying the hell out of passing-by people. ...

*You have scored 10 out of 10 on the Asperger's Syndrome test.*

Re:Well...

[yroJJory]

No, you're not. I don't have a cell fone and don't plan on getting one anytime soon. And certainly not while the members of the oligopoly are touting their "we suck slightly less than the other guys" sales pitch.

I run a recording studio and spend all day sitting next to a phone I can't even answer (so as to not disturb sessions), so why do I need another phone I cannot answer, and one that telcos have found so many creative ways to run up the charges with?

Re:Well...

[dnahelix1]

No you're not. I don't understand why teens need a phone anyway. At best, they need one that calls mom, dad, and maybe a taxi.

Re:Well...

[rah1420]

i-only-want-som ething-that-can-call-and-receive-calls

I had one - a StarTac.

The FCC, in their infinite wisdom, (cough), decided to disallow it from being activated on the networks because it didn't have something - what was it - GPS, E911? Something.

Anyway, in order to get a Razr for my wife on my family plan, I had to do the "new every two" dance. And stupidly forgot to move my StarTac to another line on my family plan BEFORE I activated the Razr. So because it "fell off" the plan, it now is a moderately useless paperweight.

I still bemoan not having my StarTac. Best damn phone I ever owned.

Re:Well...

[QuasiEvil]

Not really - mark me down in the luddite curmudgeon category as well. Personally I still miss my *mobile* phone - you know, the kind with a full-sized handset and a radio box mounted under your seat in the car. Sure, it wasn't terribly portable, but being analog and equipped with something like a 3W radio, that sucker could make and receive calls in places today's phones can only dream of... Plus, being analog, you could actually *understand* the person on the other end.

Re:Well...

[hazem]

Ahh, good to know that there's somebody else here :) .

While I understand the whole cellphone-revolution thingy, I just don't need all that crap that's currently being merged into cells. Why would I need a camera, an mp3 player, worse, the Internet on my phone? I'm not a multimedia borg (yet),

I'm kind of the same way. My phone is very basic.

BUT... a friend of mine has a crack-berry (work-provided). And I have to admit, it was very handy recently when we were trying to find a place downtown and we could just pull up google-maps to get directions... and then check out their website to find out they'll be closed until August.... then to citysearch to find somewhere else to get some jazz and drinks.

I still don't want one. The admin in our office was trying to push me and my boss to get one. I definitely don't want that burden.

Though, I was the same way about cellphones several years ago - when I got switched to a phone from a pager. But, all I have now IS a cellphone... a very simple cellphone... with a cheap, no-contract plan. (Virgin Mobile). I'd try cricket, but I'm happy with my $20 phone (which is now free on their website - well, still $20, but comes with $20 of airtime).

Re:Well...

[toddestan]

Not quite, that's a call and recieve and beat someone to death phone.

I get 1500

[Lord Apathy]

I get 1500 text messages with my plan. I used 6 last month. I never saw the need for 1500. I can't even imaging 6000+.

Re:I get 1500

[Anonymous Coward]

-- ok, bye for now. -- ok, bye. -- ok, stop texting -- no, you stop texting -- no, you -- no, you -- you didn't stop texting -- ok, this time it's for real. Stop texting. -- no you stop texting. If you don't, I'll grab your phone and run away with it. ... (and so on)

Why text when you can talk?

[Coopjust]

I personally hate text messaging.

It's convenient once in a while- I get about 1 a month. For situations that you can't be disturbed in, it occasionally makes sense to text.

However, I don't get the obsession with texting that some teenagers have. Why text when you can talk? It's a heck of a lot easier, and texting is a literal pain to (I don't get how someone can type 200 texts a day and not have their fingers fall off).

It seems kind of silly to use text messages on a device with such limited input. A few phones have keyboards, but even then the keys are so small it's easier to talk.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[HoldenCaulfield]

To me, the real benefit of texting is when I don't want to talk to the person. There are plenty of times when what was supposed to be a 1-minute call turns into a 5-minute call . . .

Also, I'm sure if you were doing 200 texts a day, you'd become pretty proficient at it . . .

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[winmine]

Perhaps you should take advantage of the new and popular acronyms to save time and make texting easier. Here are some relevant to your interests:

GOML (get off my lawn)
IGAB (I got a bingo!)
DFOL (dentures fell out laughing)

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's asynchronous, quiet, fast, and you don't annoy the crap out of everyone around you. Plus unlimited SMS messages is probably cheaper than unlimited calls.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[SuperBanana]

I don't get the obsession with texting that some teenagers have. Why text when you can talk?

• You can do so in a noisy environment (for everyone: bus, train. For students? The cafeteria, etc.)
• You can do so in a quiet environment (class)
• You can do it in low-signal-strength areas
• Like, you totally can't call up Johnny-the-uncool-but-cute boy and say "sure, I'll go to the movies with you friday" with your friends in earshot. But OMG, you can text him and they'll never know!

Texts are also, in general, handy for when you want to get a quick message to someone without forcing them to drop everything. A phone call has more "drop what you're doing and look!", and voicemails are a pain when you can read in 1-2 button-presses what the message is.

Now, I don't understand why parents are obsessed with getting their kids cell phones. I remember NYC was going to ban them, and parents had a SHITFIT, as if being able to call their precious baby would save them from a terrorist attack...

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Barbarian]

Some kids are just really good at it. I saw one on the train who could average 1 word per second. It's something that I could never do, but I bet that if most of us on /. grew up with text messaging, we could do it too.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[doormat]

I can deal with texting at places like a rock concert or anywhere else that if I tried to make a call I wouldn't be able to hear a damn thing, or in places where its not appropriate to make a phone call (though some might consider the taps of your fingers on the keypad only slightly less annoying than you making a call right there). The only other useful situation is broadcasting - when you want to send a message or note to more than a few people at a time. Tell 10 of your friends you're having a party or something.

Otherwise it just seems to me that its an anti-social device. Instead of talking to someone you're sending one way messages.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[romcabrera]

Messages are mementos, they can be preserved.
Also you can easily "talk in background" asynchronously with someone while doing something else (doing the homework, cleaning the house, eating, etc.)

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because children have become expert at texting under the desk. While this is a skill that is right up there in the modern world with programming via the hex keypad, it is useful to communicate during school and at night when one is supposed to be asleep. That way there is no chance the parent will know that the child is scheduling the sexual activity. As mentioned above, the parents could take the phone away, but that would require the parent to either choose to not be in 24 hour a day communication with the kid or setting and standing behind rules.

What I don't understand is that kids should have cell phones so they learn how to use them, but texting and phone calls can ate logged with time, so it is very clear if the child is breaking rules, and therefore consequences can be easily justified. Not only this, but it encourages lying as the child will lie about the use, yet few parents seem to willing to confront the lie with evidence. Therefore lying becomes a way of life.

I recall a time when it was very clear that the only children that needed phones and beepers and the like were the drug dealers and hookers and the like. I still feel that this is largely the case, but the wants of our society, like cell phones, have overcome the needs like one on one mental stimulation and parental contact.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[EastCoastSurfer]

You hit them all pretty well. The biggest feature for me is that texting is disconnected. You don't have to bother the other person right then and they don't have to bother you. They can read and respond whenever they want to. Also makes it very easy to carry on multiple conversations at the same time.

Personally, I rarely talk on the phone anymore and just use texting to set up where/when I'll meet people.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[glavenoid]

How the hell did this get modded "troll"? *shakes fist at cloud*

I thought those were pretty damn funny. Then again, what do I know? I've still got an onion strapped to my belt.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Bogtha]

Why text when you can talk?

It's an asynchronous conversation. If I want to know if you are coming to the pub later, I don't need to know right now, I don't need to interrupt what you are doing, and I don't particularly want to chat, because that's what we'll be doing at the pub. If I see a programme on television about fat chicks, I might text my mate — who is a bit of a chubby chaser — to take the piss, but I don't necessarily want a response or to talk to him. And from a purely lazy perspective, sending a few words via text message just seems like less hassle than a conversation. I'll typically talk to between six and ten people when deciding what to do at the weekend, it takes much less attention and time to do it with SMS than with voice.

Slashdot translation: voice == TCP, SMS == UDP. Voice and TCP require a set-up, whether that's a three-way handshake or a "Hi how are you doing?". SMS and UDP just communicate the relevant information and let you deal with it in your own time.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha ha :) Nice one....

Guess the mods are cranky because their dentures fell out this morning :-P

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[boo19]

Texting's the thing to do here in Singapore. I think it has something to do with the fact that if you call someone up and talk to them on your cell, your battery (well, depending on phone model) will die much faster than if you had just texted them something. Of course I'd call someone if it was something urgent, but often it's a message like "Let's go for drinks next week" or "I just bought an awesome new game"- brief stuff that you'd feel pretty stupid calling your friends just to say. And you can hold several conversations at once.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[cjdkoh]

i'm guessing that many slashdotters are uncomfortable in spoken conversations. for them, text messaging is much easier.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[idiot900]

However, I don't get the obsession with texting that some teenagers have. Why text when you can talk? It's a heck of a lot easier, and texting is a literal pain to (I don't get how someone can type 200 texts a day and not have their fingers fall off). Would you rather they disturb you with loud chatter? Texting is quiet.

Texting is also a lot like email. It doesn't require that the other person stop whatever they are doing to receive the message. Unlike voicemail, messages can be parsed by the recipient faster than realtime. Texting can be done in areas with low signal levels where calls would be garbled or dropped. And you can exchange small pieces of information with multiple people much more easily than with voice.

Texting is IMHO incredibly overpriced for the bandwidth it provides, but apparently the market will bear it because of its advantages for certain communication needs...so I don't get the obsession some people have with bashing texting over talking. Welcome to the 21st century ;)

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Lost Engineer]

Seriously, mod me of offtopic if you want. This is funny; somebody give this guy his karma back. (Use underrated)

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Lost Engineer]

I haven't actually seen unlimited calls. I think the operators are afraid people would find ways to abuse the privilege... but 3500 minutes, enough for all 6 of my nuclear family and equivalent to 2 hours on the phone every day, during peak hours only with nights starting at a piddly 7pm, is 130 a month.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[hazem]

Another use I had when coordinating picking a friend up from work. There was a no-parking, no-loitering policy there.

So, before I would leave, I would type in a message like "Off Freeway", or "almost there". And when I got to a certain point, I could just hit the button. That gave her just enough time to clock out and show up at the pick up point.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so someone thinks that the fact that you have a personal opinion is insightful.

I'm not sure if I'd take that as an insult or not...

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[mistralol]

Its not possible to talk in the middle of class is it ? With a text you can. I prefer text for a lot of things. eg Arranging a night out with a group of friends. If you were to phone each person it would take an hour todo. Where as a text to a group of people it takes 1 minute and it works out cheaper. People get the chance to see if they are available etc.. your not putting them on the spot and they can silently discard if they are not interested ... Without making up some bullshit excuse. This allows a social network of friends to grow larger than it has done with making tradition phone calls.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Firehed]

With the T9 word recognition (75274368 instead of 7777555277774436668 for slashdot), it's reasonably quick. Mind you, I still have to stare at the phone to send anything (I know people that can easily text without taking their phone out of their pocket), and continue to hate texting except in odd situations where a phone call wouldn't be appropriate. If I actually sent text messages regularly, I could see myself doing so quite quickly - although obviously you could never be as fast as on a normal keyboard where you get ten fingers instead of one thumb to type with (unless you're a two-hand texter).

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Rob the Bold]

I thought those were pretty damn funny. Then again, what do I know? I've still got an onion strapped to my belt.

Get with the times. No one's strapped an onion to his belt since back when nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[charlieman]

T9
And probably each text the girl was sending was like one or two words. Do they take account the amount of text in the message?

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Bent Mind]

Personally, I've never understood cell phone texting, except for occasional, quick, short message. Why pay to send a text message on a really crappy keyboard when you can send it for free on a real keyboard using your laptop and a WiFi hot spot? I've seen lots of people do it though, even in the same room.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[OutSourcingIsTreason]

My daughter always texts her friends when she's riding as a passenger in my car. That way she can have a private conversation and I can't hear a word.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[uqbar]

You forgot

IMBN (It's MY ball now)

Yeah yeah...

[Colin Smith]

But I'm getting paid to do this.

Oh... You mean I'm not?

It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Ogemaniac]

In many situations, it is both superior to and FAR more polite than yapping. I had my first cell phone when I lived in Japan, and I sent and received about twenty messages a day. Talking on cell phones was banned in many locations including public transportation, and severly frowned upon in most other public locations. It was like heaven.

Then I returned to the US: People yap while driving. Yap on the bus. Yap while in line. Yap yap yap, oblivious to the people around them or how annoying (and dangerous) they are being.

I blame this largely on the cell phone providers. It is obvious that a text message is far cheaper for them than a phone call, as the amount of information to be sent is tiny. Yet here in the states, text is expensive, typically the price of a minute of talk or so. In Japan, a text was 2-3 cents, while a minute of talk nearly ten times that. Text was automatically part of any plan that I saw. Such pricing is sensible, given the large amount of data that needs to be transferred for live calls, and the fact that it has to be immediate.

American wireless companies should drop the price of text down to a fair price (pennies) in order to encourage its use. Not only is this the fair market price, but it would help the adoption of a great complementary technology to direct voice communication.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Colin Smith]

I blame this largely on the cell phone providers. Yeah, that's it. Nothing to do with the culture.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

That is, until people start texting on the road. I'd rather have someone yapping with a car kit and both hands on the wheel than trying to input text on a tiny keyboard while swerving around on a freeway.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/ 12/1252209&from=rss

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[chill]

My kids have Cingular (now AT&T) pre-paid phones with a set budget per month. On these phones SMS messages are $0.05 each, so $0.15 is outrageous.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Gonoff]

I would agree with you. There is a lot that the providers could do that would affect the culture.

Here in the UK, even the cheapest contracts(plans) provide more than enough texts for anyone but teenagers. I pay 10ukp or $20 a month and get 300 minutes and 300 texts. Some months, I may send over 30 texts. I think they are then charged at 5 pence (10c) for those who go over.

I have never heard of anyone here having to pay to receive them though.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[coug_]

In many situations, it is both superior to and FAR more polite than yapping. I had my first cell phone when I lived in Japan, and I sent and received about twenty messages a day. Talking on cell phones was banned in many locations including public transportation, and severly frowned upon in most other public locations. It was like heaven.

Then I returned to the US: People yap while driving. Yap on the bus. Yap while in line. Yap yap yap, oblivious to the people around them or how annoying (and dangerous) they are being.

Maybe you're not actually saying it, but it almost sounds like you're implying that texting while driving is safer than talking. Neither one are safe, but talking while driving is certainly safer than texting.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[The boojum]

I agree that yapping on the phones in the middle of crowd or while driving is quite rude. But the problem with is that you assume that it's even necessary to answer a call immediately. Most phones have caller id and voicemail.

If I'm in the middle of something (e.g., driving) or in a public place where talking on the phone would be rude or annoying to the people around me, I'll just let the call go and then make a discrete exit to an area with some privacy where I won't be bothering anyone and return the call. This usually doesn't take more than a minute or two and the caller is still in a good situation to speak with me.

My cell phone is just a way to get in touch with me quickly, though not always instantaneously.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Animats]

Reactions to texting vary so widely. If I send text messages to people over 35, they often never even get them, or are puzzled that strange icons have appeared on their phone, and never reply with a text message. But they answer E-mail. If I send text messages to younger people, they get them, and may text or call back, or e-mail back. If I text to friends who are young, female, and Asian, a reply comes back within minutes. But if I e-mail them, I don't get an answer until the next time they check their web mail, which may take days.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[b0s0z0ku]

People yap while driving.

Better they yap than text while driving! At least you can keep your eyes on the road whilst yapping.

-b.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[cyclop]

If I text to friends who are young, female, and Asian, a reply comes back within minutes.

Cool. How can I have young female Asians as friends too?

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[oojah]

Absolutely, and you can even texts included on prepay deals as well. I top up £10 and for a month after that point, I've got 300 hundred or so texts to use that don't get deducted from the £10 (and I'll never use up anyway). If I've still not topped up after the month has expired, then the texts start costing me but I've still got the money I topped up with to go at. With calls as well, the tenner normally lasts me about five to six weeks. It's a good deal.

Cheers,

Roger

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this "fair market price" you speak of?

According to Wikipedia, "fair market value" was defined by the US Supreme Court as "the price at which the property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy or to sell and both having reasonable knowledge of relevant facts".

That sounds like the case as it is now.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Ogemaniac]

On the contrary, texting while driving would be so outrageously dangerous that even the morons who will talk while driving would probably balk at attempting to type.

Talking while driving has shown to be as dangerous as drunk driving, or thereabouts. It should be banned, and any who causes an accident while yapping should be sued into oblivion.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[AeroIllini]

American wireless companies should drop the price of text down to a fair price (pennies) in order to encourage its use. Not only is this the fair market price, but it would help the adoption of a great complementary technology to direct voice communication. Oh, I get it now. You're assuming that the oligopoly of cell phone providers in this country (there are only four) actually give a flying chair what the market thinks of their service.

It's ok, we understand you're new here.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Rob the Bold]

On the contrary, texting while driving would be so outrageously dangerous that even the morons who will talk while driving would probably balk at attempting to type.

So you would agree that texting while driving would be so stupid that even a moron would know not to, right? Unfortunately, I witness texting while driving about once a week, and I'm in the US where even our morons are dumber.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[grommit]

Yesss.... because spending 45 minutes to have a conversation with somebody via SMS (keep in mind, all of your attention will be focused on typing out the keystrokes and the people around you will get run over by a bus without you knowing) is *so* much better than having a 5 minute voice conversation.

With both methods, you can easily move to another room so people don't think you're ignoring them but with SMS, you're likely to be left behind by your friends since they'll be saying, "Where's Bob? I saw him half an hour ago.. I guess he left." Nope, you're still plugging away at your cellphone trying to describe something via SMS.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[dkf]

At least you can keep your eyes on the road whilst yapping.

You'd think so, but there's quite a bit of evidence now that shows that while your eyes might be on the road, your mind most certainly isn't. Indeed, being on the phone while driving is similarly dangerous to DUI! Scary stuff. (A hands-free kit helps a bit, but not very much; concentration is still not there.) For the sake of yourself and everyone else on the road, let calls received when driving go to voicemail; it will wait...

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[loxosceles]

You're forgetting that any kind of RF service is an oligopoly, because only one company can get a license to a particular band in a particular area, and there are only a few cdma/gsm/wcdma-licensed bands. Prices in the U.S. are what they are because all the cell providers have the same general philosophy -- gouge the customer. If one of them broke with that tradition and started charging reasonable prices that reflected actual costs (plus some profit margin), the rest would have to follow suit. But since none of them is inclined to shift to a realistic pricing model, we all get screwed.

The subject of this thread is a perfect example of gouging. When a provider can offer an unlimited messaging plan for $15/month, the reasonable, rational thing to do is to cap SMS charges at something more -- but not 50 times more -- than that. There is a legitimate need to charge more per message when someone prepays for 100 messages and uses a few thousand. The networks can't do proper capacity planning if users subscribe to minimal plans (voice and/or messaging and/or data) and then use a lot more than that. However, there's no need to charge hundreds or thousands of dollars extra when someone occasionally goes way about their limits, particularly with data and messaging plans where the providers already offer fixed-rate plans of $15 for messaging and $30-$40 for data. Those who don't subscribe to unlimited plans should be charged more per KB, but only up to a cap of maybe $100 or $200 for data or $50 for messaging. That allows the networks to avoid losses if there's a lot of unplanned usage, while not eating up some parent's salary when a wayward kid decides to send/receive a few thousand text messages.

Variable-use services rely on the statistical principle that with large numbers of users, service utilization tends to smooth out. Charging ridiculous amounts for spurious incidents of individual users using more services than expected is plainly abusive. It ignores the reality of relatively minor impact from the service provider's perspective, while depending on the individual customers' tendency to pay linearly for use of services.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Ogemaniac]

As I said, it is a complementary technology. 80% of phone calls aren't nor need to be five minutes. They are "Hey, I am going to be five minutes late" or "Do you wanna go out tonight?".

You would be amazed at how little you find that you need to actually talk when you are in an environment that discourages public talking and sets fair prices.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[MrWa]

Then I returned to the US: People yap while driving. Yap on the bus. Yap while in line. Yap yap yap, oblivious to the people around them or how annoying (and dangerous) they are being.

I completely agree. That's why I check and send emails on my Blackberry while driving, instead of yapping.

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Once a week?! I do it *daily*

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Doobie Dan]

I'd be lying if I said I didn't do it.

Please mod me down on principle.

(if you ever see me driving near you RUN)

Re:It's about time texting caught on in the US

[HungWeiLo]

If they're REALLY young Asian females, the reply comes back at the same moment that your message goes out.

The problem is

[Anonymous Coward]

you can not block SMS capability. At list on T-mobile, I am not sure about Verizon. Someone was texting me and I've asked them to block SMS altogether. The customer service rep offered me to change the phone number and credited the messages charged, but said that there is no way to not block SMS.

Companies don't want to fix it

[Tablizer]

It could be fixed with digital-voice announcements of suspicious amounts and passcodes that limit an individual. But companies don't add these features because they *want* your kids to rake up fat bills.

Tmobile has unlimited

[Anonymous Coward]

The T-mobile Sidekick III is only $199.99 with a 2 year contract and it has a full QWERTY keyboard and INCLUDES unlimited texting AND T-Mobile MyFavs unlimited calling to 5 people.

If I had teens that text'd that much I don't care if T-Mobile's reception isn't always 100% and I don't think my future kids would either.

Get the unlimited plan before the next bill

[BRTB]

Little hint for people who get a huge bill for text messages or call-time overages: call the cell company and see if they'll retroactively switch you to the unlimited text plan or a calling plan with more minutes for that month.

I've personally done this with T-Mobile (had a little mishap with a Nagios network monitor sending me a few thousand notify messages by mistake) and it was a great relief to watch my cellphone bill drop from several hundred dollars to the usual $50.

I think the trick is, you have to do it before the next month's bill comes in; that, and T-Mobile has consistently been the least evil of the cellphone companies I have to deal with. If you're on another carrier, YMMV.

6,807 messages?

[DrPepper]

6,807 messages in 30 days is 227 a day and somewhere round about 12 to 15 messages an hour on average. Either the number is an exaggeration, or she must have sore fingers.

Re:6,807 messages?

[Archangel Michael]

OMG
LOL
I (heart) U
U 2
U See WHF (what's his/her face)
OMG
Ugly
OMG YNK (you're not kidding)

I can easily seeing a totally meaningless conversation with nothing but acronyms and shortcuts and words no bigger than 5 letters, all in the span of a few minutes. Makes me wonder about our next generation. It really does.

Re:6,807 messages?

[profplump]

Makes me wonder about our next generation. It really does.

Yeah, kids these days. With their new-fangled gadgets and loose morales. There's just nothing you can do to keep them off your lawn.

Seriously, stop wondering about the next generation and own up to the fact that you were retarded when you were 14 too.

Re:6,807 messages?

[symbolic]

Absolutely - they think every keypad (including a keyboard) is a substitute for their cell phone, and that everyone reading it is just as clueless as they are. Kids who can write sentences that are grammatically correct and are spelled correctly are by far the exception these days.

Re:6,807 messages?

[benplaut]

Also take into account that incoming charge the same, and that instant messaging (java AIM, etc) also cost per 3 digit reply...

Re:6,807 messages?

[rossifer]

I can easily seeing a totally meaningless conversation with nothing but acronyms and shortcuts and words no bigger than 5 letters, all in the span of a few minutes. Makes me wonder about our next generation. It really does.

Have you ever listened to teenagers talking? They don't need SMS to continuously say nothing of importance. Near as I can tell from people who were observing teenagers back in the day, this hasn't changed at all in the past sixty years. I suspect teenagers were grunting over nothing important long before humans discovered fire, but nobody's really bothered to record it because there's nothing of consequence to record...

Don't worry. These teenagers have the same potential as those in times past. It's the medium that's changed, not the (lack of) message.

Ross

Re:6,807 messages?

[Anonymous Coward]

QFT

Re:6,807 messages?

[Evil Pete]

This is the the high tech equivalent of apes grooming each other. No information content. Translated it means:
You there?
Yeah
OK
Good

It serves an emotional purpose not a communication one.

Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[garett_spencley]

My wife's bill this month was over $200 and it's usually around $30. It was mostly from texts and receiving local calls from her pregnant friend (I say she's pregnant because that's apparently why she's been calling so much).

I hate phones to begin with. I've been begging her to let us disconnect our land line. Not so that we can migrate to wireless-only (I don't own a cellphone and never plan to) but so she can also ditch her cell phone and we can enjoy the peace of never having someone make a ringing noise (or worse - a cheesy song) in our home or pocket.

So yeah ... considering a land line costs $20 and she can make all the texts she wants via MSN/ICQ/etc. for FREE that $200 bill almost spelled divorce.

Thanks to the Internet there are so many un-intrusive forms of instant communication. I realize that cell phones provide a certain level of convenience for a lot of people (being able to phone home while you're shopping or for teenagers to communicate to their parents while they're hanging out with friends etc.) but for me I can not see the purpose of a phone. To spend $200 in one month for one is absolutely mind-boggling. I can't imagine what I'd do if my child ran up an $1100 bill. To say they'd never be allowed near a phone again is just the tip of the ice berg.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Anonymous Coward]

that $200 bill almost spelled divorce.

That's a solid relationship you have there.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Cheapy]

If you were honestly thinking about divorce over a paltry sum of $200, you really might wanna go over why you married in the first place. :)

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Shados]

Its not about the money, its just about the stupidity. If my fiancee did something that dumb, I'd consider ditching her too (and she knows that, and would do the same straight back to me if the situations were reversed).

Is it that weird to have certain expectations from the people you live with? Mistakes happen, and thats no biggy, but that? Ugh.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[sgarringer]

I don't know about that. There are times when the conversation may just be more important to the money. Its not like we're talking about thousands of dollars here, we're talking about $200. I don't see how having a $200 cell phone bill one month is stupid...

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[db32]

I think you should probably go ahead and file the divorce now. If you are that upset about a $200 bill (its happened here, me n wife had words, but nothing even remotely close to divorce) all surrounding an increased frequency of communication with a pregnant friend....boy are you screwed if she ever gets pregnant. EVERYONE friends, family, calling all time time to see how everything is and chat about it.

Incidentally, you might want to do the math on what long distance calls cost. A landline can murder you just as fast if not faster on long distance charges than any decent cellphone plan.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Shados]

If its mostly from texting, it IS stupid, because there are many, many alternatives. If its raising a 200$ bill from talking with their parent who's oversea in a country that just got nailed by a bomb, crashing the communication systems, etc, thats something else altogether.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Lost Engineer]

Jeez people. I think we can safely say the OP was exaggerating about the divorce thing. Either that or he's very, very poor, and should not be having a cell phone. Gee, which one do you think it is?

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[db32]

One would certainly hope, but as I have met people that are that prone to irrational upset, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. With a divorce rate of something like 50% these days, and the fact that it has become easier to get a divorce than to cancel with most telecom/ISP services...well...

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[StikyPad]

that $200 bill almost spelled divorce.

That's a solid relationship you have there.

He was being literal. When he ripped the bill into shreds and threw it on the floor, the pieces spelled out D-I-V-O-R-E-C.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Anonymous Coward]

It was mostly from texts and receiving local calls from her pregnant friend. ... that $200 bill almost spelled divorce.

My spider sense is telling me that they were talking about her plans to divorce you.

wife: UR PG? AWSUM
friend: SO WEN R U GETN PG?
wife: MY HB SHOOT BLNKS.
friend: DAT SUX.
wife: AN HE HAS SMAL DIK.
friend: U SHUD DVRC HIM!

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[syousef]

That's a solid relationship you have there.

That's a little judgemental. Depending on a person's income it could be quite a big issue. Imagine that amount meant the family didn't get groceries for the week, or someone couldn't go to the doctor.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[RealGrouchy]

a paltry sum of $200

I take it you're not living week-to-week on a tight budget, then?

- RG>

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[stinkbomb]

ditch her cell phone and we can enjoy the peace of never having someone make a ringing noise (or worse - a cheesy song) in our home or pocket. Wait, you keep people in your pocket? Tiny people or big pockets?

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Isaac-Lew]

You do realize that you can choose the ringtone, upload a ringtone of your selection (on certain phone models), or even set it to *not* ring at all? As for the home phone - again, depending on the model you can set it to not ring (and on some VOIP services it will alert you on your television or on your computer that someone's trying to call, along with the number so that you can screen the call).

To me, people that brag about not needing a cellphone are just as annoying to me as those that use their cellphone inappropriately.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[garett_spencley]

It's not just a cellphone. It's phones in general. And I wouldn't exactly call it bragging.

I just find phones to be intrusive. When someone calls you at the very least you need to look at your phone to see who it is so that you can screen it. If your phone is not nearby or it's a cordless then you need to go out of your way to locate it just so you can screen it and 9 times out of 10 you don't pick up because it's someone you don't want to talk to. No matter what you are inconvenienced. Call me lazy but I would rather not bother. Sure it's not a big inconvenience. But given the option I would do without it.

When someone needs to get in touch with me I strongly prefer that they use e-mail or IM so that I can respond at my convenience. It's extremely rare that a situation requires my immediate attention.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[The One and Only]

What happens if you have to fill out a form with your phone number?

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[DoofusOfDeath]

If you were honestly thinking about divorce over a paltry sum of $200, you really might wanna go over why you married in the first place. :)

Someone offered him $300 to do it?

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Anonymous Coward]

In general, by the time someone is my fiancee (or even serious significant other--I'll admit I've never actually been engaged to anyone), they've built up a substantial stock of evidence against being an idiot, something that it would probably take more than one non-cataclysmic incident to destroy. I must admit that I have difficulty seeing the value in acting otherwise, provided non-idiocy is important to you.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Shados]

In general, by the time someone is my fiancee (or even serious significant other--I'll admit I've never actually been engaged to anyone), they've built up a substantial stock of evidence against being an idiot, something that it would probably take more than one non-cataclysmic incident to destroy. I must admit that I have difficulty seeing the value in acting otherwise, provided non-idiocy is important to you.

Oh, I totally agree with you. Thats why I know, 100% sure, that my fiancee will never do something that dumb. But if she was defy all logic and do it, It would be one step toward making me feel I was wrong for all these years (a single event wouldn't be enough. You're right).

Its kind of like if you're someone for 10 years, then they cheat on you. Would make one reconsider everything they thought during that decade. (Fortunatelly, I never was in that situation).

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[jimicus]

Tell me about it... my g/f's Irish, but we live together in the UK. When her mother had a recent health scare, our phone bill went through the roof. It may only be 45 minutes flight away but it is another country so as far as the telco's concerned, that's international rates. And international rates to mobile phones are even worse.

We're now on a flat fee and get 200 minutes/month to almost any number on the planet, including cellphones but excluding premium rate sex lines. Much better - I just wish the telco offered this years ago.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[LordEd]

I think if they can't afford the groceries, doctor, or $200 cell bill, then a divorce would be a bit out of their price range as well.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[syousef]

Oh you think common sense, sanity and logic apply to those seeking divorce?

15 cents per message?

[HalAtWork]

Surely with the logistics involved, even if you take into account how many cell phones can be connected in the area at once, it wouldn't cost $0.15/text message. Companies are overcharging, but $1,100 for a phone bill is ridiculous no matter what your plan is. It's a racket because all mobile phone providers have similar plans, so if you go to a "competitor" you get screwed anyway, there's no incentive to switch except to all be under the same carrier so you can get discounts for phoning each other.

Re:15 cents per message?

[loraksus]

It's not overcharging, it's gouging.
I have to say, it was really nice watching all the cell phone companies start charging for inbound sms messages last year. First Sprint (always the worst fuckers of the lot) and then it dominoed down from there.
Yay, now we get to pay for incoming spam messages we didn't request and can't turn off!

Prepaid in other countries

[LBArrettAnderson]

15 cents is ridiculous. In the Dominican Republic, 95% of the time, people buy prepaid phone cards for their phones (pretty much no one has plans)... texting costs 1 peso (3 cents)... it's surprising that the main wireless company there (verizon) is the same one that charges 15 cents in and out here in the states... and EVERYTHING that you receive (calls, texts, etc...) is free.

Re:Prepaid in other countries

[guabah]

Well, that's the advantage of having the peso worth approximately 20-30 fractions of a dollar. The telco knows that can't try to bleed to much the customers or they risk loosing them. That and the fact that in the DR, most places don't have landlines.

Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a problem that could easily be solved if parents and teachers weren't such pussies.

All the parents need to do is take away the kid's phone, both physically and by cancelling the account. It's as simple as that.

All the teachers would need to do is smash the phone of any kid caught sending these messages in class. They could throw it against the wall, or even step on it. It's as simple as that.

Of course, the PC culture so prevalent in America today would no doubt find such basic discipline to be "abuse" or "discrimination", even when it's clearly not the case. That's unfortunate, as the only solution to this sort of misbehavior is some good, old-fashioned tough love.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Planesdragon]

All the teachers would need to do is smash the phone of any kid caught sending these messages in class.

In most jurisdictions, that's "willful destruction of property" or a similar criminal and civil infraction.

The rule of law does not allow the government to take private property without fair compensation. A teacher is, at best, part of the government. I suspect any teacher that earned their school a $300 replacement fee would pretty quickly loose their standing.

An "F" or detention is much simpler.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[fmobus]

I don't see why teachers should smash kids texting. They are not disrupting anyone else's attention beside their own. Now, while cell-phone-babbling during class (or movies, or theaters) is wrong and should be punished, it doesn't justify destroying private property.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[mrchaotica]

In that case, they could go with the standard "take it away and give it back at the end of the school year" punishment.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Khomar]

An "F" or detention is much simpler.

No, it is not, and that is part of the problem. Often when a teacher issues detention, the parents do not allow their children to stay for it. Either because it is an inconvenience for them or because they cannot believe that their child is a perfect little angel. Giving an "F" will certainly raise the hackles of parents. Remember, this is a world where even red ink is considered abusive. The problems with discipline in the schools starts with a lack of discipline in the home. This is then translated to the class room where the parents get upset if the teacher tries any type of discipline.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, this is a world where even red ink is considered abusive.

No, it's not. You're using a straw-man argument to justify actual destructive behavior. Shame on you.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Achromatic1978]

End of the day? Sure. End of the week? Maybe, repeat offender. End of the year? I would be climbing all over you. You do not as a teacher have the right to withhold someone's property from them for up to a year.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not, paypal does it all the time.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[halcyon1234]

All the teachers would need to do is smash the phone of any kid caught sending these messages in class.

An "F" or detention is much simpler.

Actually, an airhorn is even more efficient. I mean, if some snot is allowed to make noise and disrupt my class, then by all rights, I should be able to do the same thing. With an air horn. Right next to their head. Every time their cell rings.

They'll get the point.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Planesdragon]

No, it is not, and that is part of the problem. "simple" and "simpler" are not synonyms. Anything that doesn't involve a lawyer is almost always simpler than anything that does.

Often when a teacher issues detention, the parents do not allow their children to stay for it. Either because it is an inconvenience for them or because they cannot believe that their child is a perfect little angel.

That's fine -- the follow-ons to after school detention are in-school suspension (johnny sits in room, by himself, all day), out of school suspension (Johnny can't come to school today as punishment) and expulsion (Johnny is too disruptive to come to this school.)

Teachers bow to angry parents because, like the GP said, they don't have the hutzpah to just use the system their school's already got.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Planesdragon]

With an air horn. Right next to their head. Every time their cell rings.

Creativity: A+
Effectiveness: B
Legality: F.

Deafening a child is as bad as--well, it is--crippling them. But if you stay within the range of "not painful", you'll do pretty good.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[mrchaotica]

That's funny, those teachers sure thought they had that right when I was in elementary school...

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Achromatic1978]

Thinking you have the right, pretending you have right, and having the right are three separate things, though.

I hate text messages

[macaroo]

First, what are these children doing? They must be writing chapters of the next Great American Novel. I have had a prepaid cell phone for 3 years and never had a text message. Then one day I had a profoundly dead individual who needed service on her personal computer and sent me a text message. What to do? I had to dig out the manual and learn how to thumb type to answer her! I tried to turn the service off on the phone because she was pestering me with these messages. To no avail, it was not possible.

Re:I hate text messages

[Anonymous Coward]

Most dead people don't have pc's but maybe that's the meaning behind "blue screen of death". Then again I could see the urgency with dead people pestering you from the beyond.

Re:I hate text messages

[rufu]

First, what are these children doing? They must be writing chapters of the next Great American Novel. I have had a prepaid cell phone for 3 years and never had a text message. Then one day I had a profoundly dead individual who needed service on her personal computer and sent me a text message. What to do? I had to dig out the manual and learn how to thumb type to answer her! I tried to turn the service off on the phone because she was pestering me with these messages. To no avail, it was not possible. I'm assuming were are using the predictive text on you mobile to type that

Re:I hate text messages

[Anonymous Coward]

You're obviously just not popular enough to understand.

Re:I hate text messages

[Buran]

Profoundly dead? Nice try... I think you mean "profoundly deaf".

As a hard-of-hearing person myself I find your reaction to be insulting. Someone expected you to help them with their computer (it seems you may be paid to do support?) and contacted you with the only method she had available to her. And you considered it "pestering". If you have had a prepaid phone for all that time I doubt that you find voice calls to be "pestering" and yet when the message comes from a deaf person, you find it aggravating and annoying?

Get some tact, help her out, and don't be so damn rude. How do you think we (deaf/hard of hearing people) feel when we ask for help with something only to be told "we don't do email, CALL our number". If we wanted to call you, WE WOULD HAVE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

People with disabilities can't help it. Rude and arrogant and holier-than-thou treatment from people like you doesn't help us function in an uncaring society any better.

Insensitive clod. And I don't mean that in the Slashdot "running joke" way.

Re:I hate text messages

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a clue. One or two, not pestering. Ten with no response, definitely pestering.

Re:I hate text messages

[trickyrickb]

in the UK, (not sure where you are) we have services such as typetalk which allow deaf/hard of hearing people to make calls to standard telephones via a third party operator. I had assumed this sort of service was avaliable elsewhere. Is it?

My understanding that type talk is a free service here.

Re:I hate text messages

[jmac1492]

in the UK, (not sure where you are) we have services such as typetalk which allow deaf/hard of hearing people to make calls to standard telephones via a third party operator. I had assumed this sort of service was avaliable elsewhere. Is it?

My understanding that type talk is a free service here.


In the US, if you deal with deaf people on a regular basis, it's possible to own a TTY machine. My college, for example, has a relatively huge deaf population and every office has a TYY number and a normal number. If you don't deal with deaf people regularly, you can call directory assistance for TDD service, which works the same way as the typetalk thing you just described. This is a free service from every telephone company I've ever heard of.

Re:I hate text messages

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see any such citation of ten messages. And the OP certainly is obligated to help his customers. Of course they are going to attempt contact again if their paid support doesn't respond.

Finally, do you really think it's reasonable for someone to sign up for a TDD service, get the equipment, use a relay service, etc., if there's already a service that exists on both ends that acts as written communication -- namely, the text message?

The poster is a git.

Re:I hate text messages

[weatherguy48]

Karma in the trash for this (OT), but I can agree with the parent. I was born with a 60% hearing loss in both ears. The last person that called me deaf, only has one good ear now....

Make the kids buy their own phone.

[SocialEngineer]

I know a couple of kids who come into a coffee shop I frequent who will sit there and call random people they don't even know - spending hours doing it - just because it is fun. I talked with them at one point, and they told me about how they kept up a 3 month relationship with this older woman, and they professed to be her sister from out of state. Even talked with the older woman's grand children.

If they can't learn the value of the tools we give them, then don't give them the tools. That, or get one of those kiddy phones that only allows 4 pre-programmed numbers - that way, they can call mommy and daddy when their friends ditch them at the ice cream social, or something like that.

it is great that so many of us can afford to give our children luxuries that we never even dreamed of having, but when they don't understand the usefulness of the luxuries and just dick around constantly with them, then something needs to be done.

Two things check what plans are out there

[emj]

I pay between 0 cents to 7 cents per SMS, depending on what plan I choose. Now the question is should that be something phonecompanies could do for you, choosing the best plan for you. Sure one big hurdle is that most flatfees are paid one month in advance and the per minute cost is paid after that month has past.

But really there is nothing except that that hinder the implementation of letting the phone company choose the cheapest plan for you..

I blame the parents

[p51d007]

Giving a cell phone to a teen WITHOUT giving them instructions or restrictions, would be like handing the keys to your car to a teenager that just got a drivers license. Oh wait, they do that too. If you are going to give your teenager a cellphone, without either blocking SMS, or restricting its use, the parents are to blame. It's like anything else with most teenagers. If you don't define the restrictions, they will abuse it.

Re:Goatse!

[jb.hl.com]

Yes, that would be a way to dissuade teens from texting, yes.

Durable phone

[glaserud]

Does this mean she actually has a phone that lasts for 6807 messages?

Re:Durable phone

[BrownM]

Whats the big deal with the number? I'm 17, and I send well over 5000+ messages a month. My phone is over a year old and still shines like new. Its not that big of a deal. Thats only 12 or so texts an hour. Which is once every 5 minutes. Not a lot at all when you think about it. Considering most kids have 50+ contacts in their phone...... sending 5000+ messages a month is nothing. Thank God for my unlimited plan.

Re:Durable phone

[edflyerssn007]

What ever happened to IM? When I was 15 (only 5 years ago) I used to just be in chat rooms with all my friends if we weren't physically together. It was much cheaper, we could do other things at the same time, and it didn't rack up huge phone bills, just the cost of broadband (which can be shared more easily than a cell-phone.)

-Ed

Re:Durable phone

[BrownM]

I use IM like crazy as well - its not unusual for me to have 5-10 MSN windows opened at the same time. But $10 for unlimited texting is hardly expensive (imho).

Re:Durable phone

[edflyerssn007]

...at least you are on unlimited sms. And just for some idea, im in college and I have somewhere around 20-40 AIM windows open at any given time, between convo's of people from home and people from here. I refuse to give into the sms craze, as IM works just fine. (I love being at a tech school, where even the non-techy's learn to leave their compy's online.)

-Ed

Re:Durable phone

[BrownM]

Ahhh, mine is always online as well. Don't get me wrong - I'm a techy myself, and I'm on the computer 24/7. But everyone seems to be into text these days. Meh.

Re:Durable phone

[Ash-Fox]

Whats the big deal with the number?

If said month was 30 days, she didn't sleep at all during those 30 days, she would be sending on average a message every six minutes. Does that sound right to you?

Re:Durable phone

[smash]

Thats only 12 or so texts an hour. Which is once every 5 minutes. Not a lot at all when you think about it. Considering most kids have 50+ contacts in their phone...... sending 5000+ messages a month is nothing.

OK so we have established you have an impossibly short attention span, don't do any form of sport, don't sleep much and don't have a job to pay for any of the shit (and if you do, and i was your boss, i'd fire you for being constantly on your phone and not doing your job).

If you're at school, you're obviously not paying attention in class...

It *is* a lot when you think about it - don't you have other things to do than send SMS on your phone (school, job, boy/girlfriend, actually doing stuff other than send SMS with your friends)?

Re:Durable phone

[BrownM]

If said month was 30 days, she didn't sleep at all during those 30 days, she would be sending on average a message every six minutes. Does that sound right to you?
Now lets say that a person gets half-a-day worth of sleep - then thats a text every 3 minutes. Sounds plausible?

OK so we have established you have an impossibly short attention span
Not true .... there's several times in a day where I don't even look at my phone because I don't feel like replying to half the spam that comes in from my friends.

don't do any form of sport
Also not true. I'm a very athletic swimmer for your information.

don't sleep much
Not true. I get at least 8 hours of sleep daily.

and don't have a job to pay for any of the shit (and if you do, and i was your boss, i'd fire you for being constantly on your phone and not doing your job)
I'm actually a lifeguard and a swim instructor, and get paid a very high amount for my age ($13 CAD/hr).
When I goto work at 5:30am, the phone stays in my locked until 1pm when I get off work (hours may vary).
I mean, I don't think you get it. I save lives.

If you're at school, you're obviously not paying attention in class...
I'm home schooled.

Re:Durable phone

[Achromatic1978]

Not true. I get at least 8 hours of sleep daily.

When I goto work at 5:30am, the phone stays in my locked until 1pm when I get off work (hours may vary).

I'm home schooled.

Not true .... there's several times in a day where I don't even look at my phone because I don't feel like replying to half the spam that comes in from my friends.

Thirty days in a month, lets say. 720 hours. Subtract 8 hours a day for sleep. 480 remain. Subtract six hours * 5/7 a day for school. 352 hours remain. Subtract 7 1/2 hours * 2/7. 288 hours remain.

You send 5,000+ messages in 288 hours, and think that that's no "big deal"?

One every three minutes that you're not sleeping, schooling or working. Based on your last quote, let's say one every two minutes. Presumably you're replying to someone, not just sending messages into thin air. So that's a message in and out of your phone at the rate of ONE EVERY SINGLE MINUTE that you're not ASLEEP, AT SCHOOL, or WORKING. Time to reach phone, a few seconds. Time to read message, a few more, time to reply, between three seconds and a minute, and bang, a reply.

In other words, when you're not ASLEEP, AT SCHOOL, or WORKING, you're CONSTANTLY TEXT MESSAGING.

No big deal, indeed.

You say you're not? Refute my maths above.

I mean, I don't think you get it. I save lives.

What in the name of blue fuck does this have to do with validating your point? Besides which, you're at a pool, how many lives have you SAVED this year? No, really, how many people WOULD HAVE DIED WITHOUT *YOU*?

Re:Durable phone

[BrownM]

What in the name of blue fuck does this have to do with validating your point? Besides which, you're at a pool, how many lives have you SAVED this year? No, really, how many people WOULD HAVE DIED WITHOUT *YOU*?
In the 2 months I've been working there - two. I kid you not.


PS: Whats wrong with texting every minute I'm not busy? I assure you I'm not making up these statistics - so don't try and say that I'm bullshitting you. The bill clearly says how many I send.

Re:Durable phone

[Achromatic1978]

The same thing that's wrong with doing /anything/ like that, /every single minute/ of /every single day/. There's a name for it. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Or, failing that, simple /Addiction/. And whilst there are less healthy things to be addicted to, any addiction is by definition "Bad(TM)".

Old news here

[Opportunist]

Teens have been raking up text bills that even went past those 1100 bucks. No, I don't understand the text craze. Personally, I prefer talking under normal circumstances. It's actually even cheaper here when you compare the amount of data you can exchange in the one to four minutes you could talk here for the price of one text message.

Kids have always had insane phone bills. That phenomenon didn't hit the US with their flat local call plans, but here it's been a lengthy battle between the kids who prefer the impersonal way of communication because it eliminates the "danger" of "saying the wrong thing" with your body, and their parents who have to foot the bill for it.

Re:Old news here

[maadlucas]

Kids have always had insane phone bills.

The thing that kind of disturbs me is that they have phone bills at all.

It's fearsome the way that something that was only ten years ago not even considered a possibility is now so prevalent. I mean, an 8 year old with a cell phone? I can remember 10 years ago on a tram in Zurich listening to some yuppies talking about phones and how one of them "really needed one" and my reaction was "do you bollocks."

Maybe i'm just getting old. When i was about 10 i saved up for two years to get a game boy.

We have it so easy.

Re:Old news here

[Opportunist]

No, brother. We had it so easy.

Back when we were kids, we had enough pocket money. There weren't many companies trying to lure us into spending it. Music and fashion. And if you're, like me, completely NOT into fashion, music was the only thing to spend our money on. Saving up was easy. And rewarding. We actually learned that saving means that you can buy something you really wanted.

Kids today won't make that experience. Peer pressure is a strong force, and it dictates that you need a cellphone. That you need to text, that you need to be on the phone constantly, and that you have the current fad in phone technology. How should they save any of their money?

Lawmakers here reacted and outlawed phone contracts (or any kind of recurring contract, that includes those at least as dangerous "ringtone subscriptions"), simply because kids already managed to go broke before they turn 18.

OMG you're late ..

[Anonymous Coward]

... over here in Europe we had the same stories years ago.

And?

[asninn]

And...? I'm not actually sure what the point of this story is. Teens do stupid things? Wow, news at 11! As long as it was just a *comparatively* minor bill of 1100 USD and as long as there were no consequences besides the financial ones, it's no big deal - at least not for anyone other than the girl's parents.

Who's disciplining the parents?

[nanojath]

Janet Boyd, a lobbyist for Dow Chemical, said she and her husband "nearly died" when they got a $70 charge for their 20-year-old daughter's text-messaging. They went to an unlimited plan.

There's so many things wrong with that sentence I don't know where to begin.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[david614]

I am not sure I understand your point. If the parents choose to pay their 20 year old daughter's phone bills, it is their business - not yours. I think that the bill itself is enough "discipline". - That, and some information on "all you can eat" text plans for cell phones.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[UnrefinedLayman]

I think what he's saying is this:

• A lobbyist - the most evil profession next to advertising executives
• for Dow Chemical - a most evil company
• "nearly died" when they got a $70 charge - to have "nearly died" over a $70 fee when you're a well paid lobbyist is insulting; being uninsured, breaking your leg on the job, getting fired from your minimum wage position because you can't work, then getting a $16,000 hospital bill is cause to have "nearly died" upon opening a bill
• for their 20-year old daughter - who needs to get a job to buy some fucking scissors to cut the fucking umbilical cord

As for "it is their business - not yours," I would respectfully disagree. It became our business the moment they let themselves be interviewed and have the information published.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[maadlucas]

The sentence is fine, it's Dow Chemical I'm worried about.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[RobBebop]

You forget something... they "Solved" the problem of having the $70 bill by purchasing the more economically friendly "Unlimited Plan". Not a moment too late, too. Little daughter could easily double the usage, but going forward, the charges will be a perfectly affordable $15.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[wongaboo]

Excellent, but you left out

"They went to an unlimited plan. - If your daughter doesn't have the discipline to hold down a job or to monitor her cell phone usage, perhaps it's because you respond to her problems by spending throwing (more) money at them.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[Moridineas]

My god you're right, a frugal lobbyist (evil, of course) who isn't happy when their kid spends money extravagantly? there's something horrifyingly wrong there all right.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[Oniko]

You know, it's quite possible for a 20-year-old to still be a full-time student, in college, without their own income, and dependent on their parents. I mean, yeah, a lot of us students get part-time jobs to help defray the costs, but the $3,000 I make a year at the tech desk isn't going to cover all that much of collegiate existence.

I haven't RTFA, so if it actually said she wasn't a student, this doesn't apply. But I'm 22, and not (much of a) slacker, and my folks still pay for my cell phone.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint: Work more than 5 hours a week if you want more than $3000/year.

Re:Who's disciplining the parents?

[daenris]

I worked 20 hours/week throughout college at a work study job, in addition to coursework towards 2 degrees. The job paid shit (7/hr) but was among the better paying work study jobs at the time. Working at that job all school year (roughly 40 weeks) and having an unpaid internship over the summer meant making about $5600/year.

Now having to pay rent/utilities, groceries, school books/etc, it really doesn't seem unreasonable that my parents would help out to pay for something.

Personally, I didn't have a cell phone in college so the point is moot for me, but it stands in general that a college student may not really have that much of an income.

asynchronous, faster, and persistent

[straponego]

If you have something quick to say, a text message is much faster and more convenient. You want to get rid of email too? Hey, let's get rid of forums like /. Why post something permanently when we could just have a giant chat room? All we have to do is get everybody together at once. In fact: let's all meet in person! It's ever so much more personal that way.

If you have something quick to say, a text message is much faster and more convenient. Texting is also particularly useful for bits of information you might need later.

OTOH, SMS is a really crappy technology. I think it's vastly overpriced even given how inefficient it is, but... wow. And the telcos have little incentive to fix it as long as people are willing to pay insane, outrageous prices per byte.

Re:asynchronous, faster, and persistent

[RobBebop]

All we have to do is get everybody together at once. In fact: let's all meet in person! It's ever so much more personal that way.

We, the constituancy of slashdot, have two words for that:

Sausage Fest.

Re:asynchronous, faster, and persistent

[Lumpy]

If you have something quick to say, a text message is much faster and more convenient.

yeah, right. Typing anything more than 2 words on a touchtone keypad takes longer than pressing the speed dial and leaving a vioce mail or telling the person.

If it was a qwerty keyboard I would agree, but thumbing a message out on the bastardized txt messaging system is WAY slower than even morse code!

It's a very simple explanation

[llZENll]

school, its kind of hard to talk on the phone during class and not get caught, texting solves this.

cell phones becoming increasingly annoying, they should be banned in: cars (for the driver), schools, church, movies, restaurants, and probably a lot more places i can't think of right now.

thanks to the oligopoly phone market, texting costs money when it should be free, as it costs almost nothing for the providors. there is one good thing about it though, at least i don't to listen to some teenage moron gawking about the new pokemon game some of the time now, since they are quietly typing away their parents money :p

its hard to feel sorry for these dumb parents who let their teens have phones in the first place, or at least not make them pay for some of it themselves, or put a cap on it, or use prepaid plans.

Re:It's a very simple explanation

[darthflo]

they should be banned in: cars (for the driver), schools, church, movies, restaurants

I oppose.
Driving and church are usually both boring as hell (the metaphor, not the one you go to if you text in church). Life should be interesting, so let drivers and people forced to attend church do something interesting.
Same goes for school. I may not have been to school for quite a bit but a bit of liability might just be a good idea. If you screw up because of texting thru class: your fucking bad. Try harder next time.
In restaurants and movies I personally don't see any need to outright ban cells. If you annoy somebody else by texting in there (and you most probably will), they can just tell you to stop it - no need to place stupid bans.

or at least not make them pay for some of it themselves

Full ack to that one.

Re:It's a very simple explanation

[Lost Engineer]

If you annoy somebody else by texting in there (and you most probably will), they can just tell you to stop it - no need to place stupid bans. This is a bit off topic, but you just made me think of something. How much rude behavior do we let people get away with these days because we're somehow afraid the other guy is going to shoot us? If this isn't the case then what else changed that made us so tolerant?

Re:It's a very simple explanation

[darthflo]

I suspect it's just a general change in our tolerance mindset. No idea if that applies to the US though as I'm europe-based (as in "nobody carries weapons").

Re:It's a very simple explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Driving and church are usually both boring as hell (the metaphor, not the one you go to if you text in church). Life should be interesting, so let drivers and people forced to attend church do something interesting.

Life should be interesting, but life should also be long, ideally. Not paying full attention to the road might potentially make life a little too interesting, both for you and other drivers.

TINSF - "Me paying this bill, that's what's nsf"

[davidwr]

Some carrier that shall remain nameless is offering unlimited texting for "only a few dollars more a month" over your voice plan.

If you haven't seen the ad, here it is.

More commentary here.

Three letters: WTF ??!?

[mcrbids]

But seriously, why is a phone call cheaper than an SMS message? It's all a digital network, so in cost per bit, SMS messages are something like 66 times more expensive than a phone call.

Let's compare: Digital cell phones use about 14.4 Kbps of bandwidth. (which explains their clarity) Figure about 30 seconds of talking to get the equivalent of a text message, with the "Hello, is SO AND SO there? Yeah. Yeah. It's Billie. 'O, o joy ur so kul'. -CHUCKLE- Ok, see you later. By by. ".

That works out to a total of 54,000 bytes, or 108,000 Bytes/minute. I get about 1,000 minutes at $70/month, a la Verizon. Each minute therefore costs $0.07. So the cost per 30 seconds of conversation is something like 3.5 cents, for 56,000 bytes.

An SMS message is, at its longest, 160 Bytes long. Include headers, let's be generous and say it's double that. (it's not) 320 bytes in an SMS message. Here, we're asking for 15 cents for just 360 bytes?!?!?

Voice
54,000/3.5 cents = .00006 cents per byte ($0.000006 / byte)

SMS
360 bytes/15 cents = .04 cents per byte. ($0.0004 / byte)

If you were buying soda, it'd be like buying a 12 oz can of soda for about $20 while a 2 liter bottle costs $1.

Does that seem like good math to you? BTW: I bought into "unlimited text messaging" back when Verizon offered it, and have refused to upgrade plans until I get it. I've got a network monitor, and when something goes wrong I can get tons of messages all at once if I'm not careful.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[watchingeyes]

Not sure about in the U.S., but in Canada SMS is provided by third parties, not the main cell phone companies. This is the case with all 3 major Canadian networks (Telus, Bell, Rogers). I work for one of them, and we were just discussing this the other day.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[CosmeticLobotamy]

It's cheaper because if you charge 15 cents for a text message, you can sell 40 bajillion minutes for $8 a century, beating your competitor's 40 bajillion for $12.

The cheap minutes sell the plan, the texting makes the money.

Also, they can. This is how it works with a free market with ridiculously high barriers to entry. It's insane, but you'll eat it and you'll like it.

Though legitimately, I assume there is some overhead involved in creating a connection over and over (finding the customer's current cell and whatnot) rather than just maintaining one, but I can't imagine that actually comes close to making up the difference in price per bit.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[smallfries]

You should try that comparison with Verizon customer services...

"Ok, so voice is 6 cents per byte, and SMS is 4 cents per byte. That's what it says on your calling plan, that's what we're charging you"

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[TooMuchToDo]

You're looking at the problem as a technical issue. It's not. It's a business issue. Cellular providers can charge extra for texting, so they will.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[imsabbel]

Easy.
Its expensive because it makes money.

I got a cell-phone with SMS capability a deacade ago.
Back then, phone companies didnt realize those as cash-cows yet, and so in the basic plan an SMS cost about 3 cent ($ exchange rate from back then). And that was at a time were you were paying nearly 1$/min for phone calls.

As time progressed, calls became cheaper and cheaper, while SMS more and more expensive...

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I have not confirmed it, but last I heard, things like SMS were consigned to a little-used side band in the GSM protocol and the like, not a regular data packet. That side band is supposedly being heavily overloaded.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[rylin]

Each minute therefore costs $0.07.

Is that .07 dollars or .07 cents?

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[loraksus]

Don't forget phone calls require QoS well over and above what a SMS message needs.
Nobody really cares if a SMS is delayed 45 seconds or whatever...

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[arivanov]

This is verizon which IIRC is not GSM so I do not know what the actual overhead is.

In classic GSM the SMS travels as a part of the paging messages and the amount of bandwidth available to it is actually quite low. So by standard law of supply and demand its price cannot be expected to be very low. Network in classic GSM simply does not have the capacity to handle lots of SMS hence it is not going to become very cheap without resorting to more modern technology.

From some point onwards (forgot which standard level) you can use GPRS for SMS which vastly improves the capacity, but it is not either not enabled or not the default setting in most operators and phones at the moment.

So there is an underlying economical reason for the relatively high price of TXT compared to voice as well as the fact that TXT is charged differently from other data. At least in GSM. No idea about whatever Verizon uses.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you compare it to their data charges, SMS is marked up by 7314%

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/cellphones/why -are-text-messages-marked-up-4876-247518.php

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[PerlDudeXL]

The Short Message Service is a cash-cow. I guess all mobile service
providers make most of their money with it.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[x102output]

because that "Hello, is SO AND SO there? Yeah. Yeah. It's Billie. 'O, o joy ur so kul'. -CHUCKLE- Ok, see you later. By by. " can be compressed into a 160 byte text message. thats why. if texting is so much cheaper to communicate, then people would talk less, which means less money for the cell company. they're not charging for data, they're charging for communication.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[tenton]

Is that .07 dollars or .07 cents?

Verizon: Yes.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[mobby_6kl]

Dude, your whole calculation is completely pointless.

Sure, if you calculate the bandwidth requirements, messages cost much, much more than 1KB of date would cost you with. But then you even used the soda example... ever noticed how a glass of coke in a restaurant can costs more than a two litre bottle in a store? Same thing. This happens either when the seller can, or need to sell at that price. Many restaurants/clubs/bars rely on this to get themselves some profit. I don't know if that's the case with phone companies, it's possible messages cost as much as they do simply because they can, or maybe there's been little demand (quite possible considering that SMS usage managed to double in one year) so they priced them for highest profit (see elasticity).

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guaranteed delivery! You send someone a message, whether their phone is on or off, they WILL get that message.
You place a phone call, it's a one time deal. Someone answers, or they don't.
Text messages are an add-on. It's a way for them to make money. You can easily get the $5.00 unlimited text messaging added onto your plan. $5.00 vs. $1100? I'll take the $5.00. These people are stupid. They don't monitor their children or their services. Verizon isn't likely to let them off on this one either.
 
This story reminds of the stories when people would lease a car, and then go over on their mileage by 15,000 miles, and be forced to pay $.60 per mile in over-mileage charges. Liberal politicians would step in and cry to the newspapers, threatening legislation to prevent these shylocks from stealing money from such an innocent victim. But nothing ever happened on these issues. I wonder why? Maybe you should be responsible for your own self? You agree to a 3 year, 45,000 mile lease, and you run 60,000 miles on the car, you pay the penalty, or you buy the car from the lease company.

If you give a cell phone to a kid, and you let them do 7,000 SMS messages per month, you've clearly not thought this out. Incidentally, that's approximately 225 SMS messages per day. That's 15 per hour for for 15 waking hours. That's 1 message every 4 minutes, all day long, for 15 hours, every day for a MONTH. If the parents were TOO STUPID to figure out what was going on, they deserve the $1100 phone bill.

And anyone who thinks that the big bad phone company is evil can EASILY avoid this situation but NOT buying service, or NOT sending text messsages. Or pay $5.00 a month for the massive texting plan. There are options besides paying $.15 per message.

TO you idiots that insist on blaming the telephone company, you are idiots. You probably get mad at the restaurant when you order $400 worth of food, and the restaurant brings you a bill for $400+tax. You knew what you were doing, you pay your bill. Take responsibility for your own actions. If you can't own up to your own actions, then someone needs to oversee EVERYTHING in your life. You can't be responsible for anything, you deserve to have the government assign some stupid bureaucrat to run your life.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were buying soda, it'd be like buying a 12 oz can of soda for about $20 while a 2 liter bottle costs $1. Does that seem like good math to you?

If my customers knew this and still bought 6807 12oz cans per month, I would say it sounded like fantastic math, and I'm sure my shareholders would, too.

And if this customer didn't think it was a good deal, too, she wouldn't be buying so many. Isn't the free market great?

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[noidentity]

Nevermind the cost; consider the time spent entering each message. Assuming conservatively 10 seconds per message, that's over 16.5 hours for that month.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[regular_gonzalez]

But seriously, why is a phone call cheaper than an SMS message?

I blame a little something I like to call, "economics"

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[MidnightBrewer]

I live in Japan, which is notoriously bad for charging high prices because they can, but in the case of SMS on the cell, sure, it's pretty expensive, but they also offer email on the same device, which is less than a sixth of the price. Go figure. That and the 10,000 character limit, ability to add attachments, and being able to email back and forth to outside world, and you really gotta wonder what American companies are doing wrong.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[ect5150]

But seriously, why is a phone call cheaper than an SMS message?
Econ 101 - Cost does not equate to price.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[antic]

"But seriously, why is a phone call cheaper than an SMS message?"

The question is, why do they charge so much for an SMS? Because they can. *shrug*

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Bellum Aeternus]

I believe this. My coworker has a daughter with a serious texting problem (he's mentioned cashing in her from collage savings to cover her mobile bill) and when he called Cingular to block her ability to send text messages they told him that they could not. Which we all know is a lie, but it only makes sense to lie because it's their revenue source.

Is it just me, or does it seem like every American company is just out to see how much they can rip-off their customers these days as opposed to... oh I don't know... just offering the best service?

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[VGPowerlord]

Guaranteed delivery! You send someone a message, whether their phone is on or off, they WILL get that message.
You place a phone call, it's a one time deal. Someone answers, or they don't.

I have two words for you: voice mail.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Gordonjcp]

But seriously, why is a phone call cheaper than an SMS message?

I have no idea, but a text message is generally 160 characters (or a multiple) - the same size as a single GSM frame.

Of course, if the US could crawl out of the technological Dark Ages and see what other countries are doing with mobiles, maybe you'd have unlimited text messages on your mobile phone plans too. Mine *isn't* unlimited. If I go over 1000 messages per month, it costs me 1p per additional message.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Romancer]

Just had to say, Nice reference. If I could mod you over 5 I would.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Aeron65432]

But Verizon will make up the difference by charging .04dollars per kilobyte and no one noticing!

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Soruk]

Oh, you will get service all right. Much the same way a cow gets service from a bull.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Anonymous Coward]

A standard call also involves a paging message that is sent to the receiver of the call.

I do not know the reasons for the billing of SMS being so high, but I guess it involves the maintenance of the SMSC (SMS processing centers) and it links. Plus, historically, operators have charge a lot for additional services - ie, everything but a standard call.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[nbritton]

If you were buying soda, it'd be like buying a 12 oz can of soda for about $20 while a 2 liter bottle costs $1.

You do realize that a 2 liter bottle is often cheaper then a 20oz bottle, yes?

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Stonent1]

One thing I've noticed with CDMA vs GSM, is with CDMA you can send and receive text messages while you are on a phone call. On the other hand (or at least with Sprint) you don't get missed call notifications if your phone was off or out of coverage, but you do with GSM.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[frostband]

They're both the same if you look at them on paperwise

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously I have no idea why you Americans even tolerate this.

Back in the Philippines (the texting capital of the world) we only get charged one peso per text message. 48 pesos equals a US dollar.

Now except for special services all text messages are charged one peso PER SENT MESSAGE. The receiver of the text message doesn't get charged diddly squat for receiving a message. Why should he? He's only getting a message, not incurring costs in initiating data transfer.

Compare that with you Americans who get charged exhorbitant amounts for SENDING messages as well as RECEIVING it.

When you send a letter to your Mother, does she pay the postman her half of the value of the stamp just for her to receive your letter? You've already paid for the stamp, right? Why do you tolerate the same thing happening to your text messages?

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[jhol13]

The SMS is stored by the operator (in case receiver is not online). At least this is what happens in GSM, I have no clue about Verizon.

The storage is calles Short Message Service Centre, and they have been known to fail and/or create delays under heavy load (e.g. during new years eve).

The behaviour is very different from "normal" call, comparing bucks per byte makes no sense.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[consonant]

Just FYI, texting in a lot of southern Indian states is free, or close to it. Entire conversations are held over text messages..It has degenerated to a point where people send messages that simply say 'k' or '...'

These networks are GSM.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Workaphobia]

The truly messed up thing is how the industry has managed to spin this to the public in their advertisements. After viewing one of those commercials where the parent screams at the teenager for an outrageous phone bill, have you ever just.. stepped out of the whole process and had an existential moment, where you realize, "Wait a minute, they admit that their prices are extortionate, and now they're just screwing me over in incrementally smaller amounts"? The whole emphasis on the keyword "minutes" - where they're treated like a currency, as the principle object of interest in all things cellphone-related - it is a tool and a trap almost in the same way people like Stallman consider the phrase "intellectual property" a trap. It brings you into a mentality that is against your interest, the idea that you agree with the telcoms, that they're on your side working with you; and it somehow suppresses common sense.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[andhar]

Whatever the carrier charges, SMS is almost pure profit. SMS uses some piece of the system that's entirely separate from the voice/data bits (don't ask me what, I'm no engineer). Essentially, this piece of the system was sitting around doing nothing until some genius worked out that you could use it to send an SMS get paid for it.

Don't expect the carriers to loosen their grips on this cash cow anytime soon!

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Mike89]

You're looking at the problem as a technical issue

I'm not 100% sure on this, but it could ALSO be a technical issues. If I remember correctly, atleast for GSM, calls are made by making a request for a frequency on the "control" frequency (Kind've like FTP, for you tech-heads out there), and being assigned a frequency to transmit and listen on for the duration of the phone call. This takes a matter of a few seconds, at most I'd guess (from watching the phone screen while it tries to do this.)

As for SMSes, they transmit the WHOLE message on the control frequency - which clearly has limited bandwith available. Now, depending on the conditions, SMSes typically take 10-15 seconds to complete sending. I remember reading on Slashdot that if you got say 50 mobiles on the same phone tower/cell, you'd be able to jam it simply by sending a message from each phone at the same time. So, to a degree (albeit rather small), it's an issue. Have you ever tried to send a text message on New Years Eve? Speaking as an Australian, I wish you luck. You'll be better off trying to get that phone-call frequency assigned though ;).

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Costa Rica we pay 0.96 cents per SMS, we really don't care how much SMS we do. :) This is thanks to the public monopoly :)

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[Chuffpole]

SMS text messages don't get transmitted on a momentary use of a 'traffic channel' (a timeslot of 1/8 of the capacity of a GSM frequency pair, as usually used for one voice call). A GSM cell basestation is always transmitting on at least one physical frequency pairing, and what's known as the BCCH (Broadcast Control Channel) is one datastream using one of the 8 timeslots on that frequency. This datastream deals with a number of important functions, and I believe it also carries SMS (almost as an afterthought) in the low amount of capacity left over.

Put your mobile phone next to a radio or speakers so that you can hear the interference, and compare the time it takes to send a short or long text message.

You're effectively paying for use of a "scarce resource". At Christmas/New Year the whole system here gets horribly backlogged due to demand, with messages taking hours to get through, even though there are plenty of voice channels spare. Yes, it doesn't actually cost much (if anything!), but as usual they charge because they can. I find I can get a message to my friends within a 10 second voice call, much cheaper than a txt msg.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[raduf]

SMS IS cheap. Just not with most providers. When bought in bulk (around 500), either in an sms-plan or in a web plan, it goes as low as 2 cents.
The thing is, even 2 cents is a lot. For once, there used to be (may still be out there) web sites which allow you to send sms for free. Dont know their economics, but since they functioned for years without bankrupcy or lawsuits i guess the publicity was worth the sms costs. I think a fair (competition-driven) price would be around 1-2 cents, but the costs are much lower.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[negative3]

It's not that simple - a voice call requires a lot more network overhead to set up, maintain, and tear down the voice circuits and actual RF traffic channel. For an SMS, it requires a fairly short hop onto a control channel to transmit the message and receive the acknowledgment from the network that it was received. Then it's either routed through the operator's internal network to the receiver or sent off to whichever other operator is required, probably over IP. Reception of an SMS requires the mobile's response to a page from the base station and then it hops onto a control channel for a rather short period of time to received the SMS. Voice calls on the other hand require a considerably larger amount of resources from end-to-end. I think $0.15 is way over priced for an SMS due to the relatively slim requirements for delivery.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[roman_mir]

First one, then the other.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[garyrich]

Cingular told me the exact same thing. Currently my daughter has had her phone confiscated for a month because that's only thing I can actually do about it.

Ah the good ol days

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Remember those huge phone bills from long distance BBS usage back in the day? I never reached over a $1000 a month but I've had a few hundred bucks a month on occasion.

Re:Ah the good ol days

[glavenoid]

You should have used an acoustic coupling modem and blue-boxed the call!

Read the friggin contract people

[rueger]

First there was this guy whining because it took more than one button click to bail out of the credit card subscription to an anti-virus service, now it's parents whining because they didn't anticipate that the cel company provided less minutes than their kid uses.

Is it really too much to ask that people read the contract or EULA, and if they accept it, not complain when they find that they made a mistake?

I'm not even remotely Libertarian, but for God's sake accept some personal responsibility for your actions.

Re:Read the friggin contract people

[Oswald]

Okay, we could have let the "minutes" slip pass unremarked, even though there's not a word in TFA about minutes. But there's no whining in the story, either. Anecdotes aplenty about families being surprised by their high wireless bills, yes. Complaints, recriminations, or denying of responsibility, no.

But if it makes you happy, you can be righteously indignant anyway.

Re:Read the friggin contract people

[fmobus]

On the one-click thing: I had a almost-bad experience with amazon.de(1) last month. I had an account there (from a previous purchase) and accidentally clicked the "1-click to buy" button (which is next to the "add to cart" button) for a product I didn't want at all. The thing is, the site said nothing like "you successfully bought x" in the next screen and did not send me an email confirming the transaction. I only realized my mistake three days later, when they sent me a mail saying the merchant would send the product shortly!

Fortunately, I mailed the merchant asking for cancellation, which he did without further ado.

Bottom-line: no money-involving transaction should be done without confirmation or means to undo. Something like "you got 30 minutes to press undo before we bill your credit card" would be already enough.

(1) "Mein deutsch ist kaputt". I'm not native German speaker.

Re:Read the friggin contract people

[monk3y_boy]

Personal responsibility and teens? You haven't got kids, LOL. And I bet there's a contract, so they can't even cancel the service.

But more to the point, isn't Verizon indulging in a predatory and deceptive practice here? They know better than their customers which services and situations can result in massive overages, but hide the more extravagant charges in the nooks and crannies of the EULA. How can companies blithely charge 5-10 times normal rates on service overages. Why would an experienced, informed person agree to pay such rates? Only through error or inattention, I suspect. These rates therefore "shock the conscience", in the legal sense, or certainly push the envelope, and should be limited by regulation to a reasonable multiple or otherwise limited liability. Where is the 30-day return for "buyers remorse" protection when a new service turns out to be a rip-off?

It's not just rates:

Take a recent case of consumer liability arising from cellphone theft: a Canadian women fought a $14,000 bill from Rogers Wireless, after her son's phone was stolen. It turns out, too, that Rogers easily flagged the suspicous activity, but intentionally let the bill run. She exposed the malfeasance after a little investigative journalism which is all well documented (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGA M.20051219.wxcellphone19/BNStory/National/). It all happened in 3 weeks while she was on vacation. Can't see yourself there? Think again.

One-sided contracts, hidden charges, deceptives sales come-on's. Do we put it all on the consumer? Better consumer protection laws from governments that aren't in bed with the bastards might help. We now have multiple devices in our homes and on our persons over which we exercise "effective control" which shifts the burden of proof to the consumer, exposing us to nearly unlimited liability. It's insane.

Personally. I use prepaid for everything possible now. I read EULAs and aggressively protect my rights. But I really don't think it's reasonable to expect this kind of due diligence from consumers. The average American reads at a grade 8-9 level, and 1 in 5 read at a below grade 6 level.

My 2c.

Re:Read the friggin contract people

[Themer]

Not only that, verizon offers unlimited texting for $10.00 more a month, and they avertise it ALL OVER the damn place when you are signing up.

Re:Read the friggin contract people

[anotherone]

Amazon never charges you until your item ships, and you can cancel the order at any time up to that point. With most products you can get a full refund less shipping even after it's arrived. As for asking for confirmation: what part of 1-click don't you understand? You did get a confirmation screen after you clicked it, and you should have received an email informing you of your 1-click purchase. If you have problems clicking accurately it's very easy to turn off the 1-click feature. You can also tell it not to save your credit card information. Don't blame amazon for your mistake.

Re:Read the friggin contract people

[smash]

Why would an experienced, informed person agree to pay such rates? Only through error or inattention, I suspect.

What's your point? It's not verizon's fault if people don't read what they're agreeing to.

I don't care if the average american reads at a 9th grade level, an 8th grade level, or a 5th grade level. It's not rocket science - and since the age of 6 or so I recall being told about "always reading the fine print".

Once you start removing the responsibility of paying for purchases from the customer via the legal process, the whole concept of "trade" breaks down.

I mean, applying your removal of responsibility of payment for use - i could walk into a supermarket, open and consume a carton of milk, and then cry "oh i never knew it cost $1.60!" and try and weasel my way out of paying for it.

Take a recent case of consumer liability arising from cellphone theft: a Canadian women fought a $14,000 bill from Rogers Wireless, after her son's phone was stolen. It turns out, too, that Rogers easily flagged the suspicous activity, but intentionally let the bill run. She exposed the malfeasance after a little investigative journalism which is all well documented (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGA M.20051219.wxcellphone19/BNStory/National/). It all happened in 3 weeks while she was on vacation. Can't see yourself there?

No, i can't see myself there. If an item that allows the generation of potentially unlimited expense disappears from your possession, it's just plain retarded to not do something about it to mitigate the potential for loss. Lose your wallet? You cancel your cards, pronto. Lose your phone? Same deal. This woman had ample opportunity to prevent the expense being incurred, but failed to act. How is this the fault of the phone company? If they had been notified you can be damn sure they would have canned the account/SIM card...

Society is continually heading towards a total lack of taking responsibility for an one's actions, and it makes me sick....

Re:Read the friggin contract people

[fmobus]

See, as a matter of fact, I WAS charged immediately on my credit card, but after I canceled the order they added a "negative" charge of the same value on my bill (effectively zeroing the transaction). If there was a confirmation screen, I did not see it (as I said above, German is not my native language) and I received no e-mail when I purchased the product, only when it was about to be shipped by the merchant.

And yes, after looking around their documentation, I turned the 1-click feature off for good. As for credit card information, they save it for next purchases BY DEFAULT. I could not foresee this situation in my first purchase, so don't blame me.

Re:Read the friggin contract people

[Achromatic1978]

Take a recent case of consumer liability arising from cellphone theft: a Canadian women fought a $14,000 bill from Rogers Wireless, after her son's phone was stolen. It turns out, too, that Rogers easily flagged the suspicous activity, but intentionally let the bill run. She exposed the malfeasance after a little investigative journalism which is all well documented (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGA M.20051219.wxcellphone19/BNStory/National/). It all happened in 3 weeks while she was on vacation. Can't see yourself there? Think again.

Wow. Thanks for that link. If only they didn't want FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS, not for a subscription to the site, but to read that one 627 word article, alone!

You can't always talk in class.....

[Anonymous Coward]

My son is in his second year of university. He says that a lot of these kids use their phones to talk with each other while in class. If they start talking normally, or even over their phones, the professor will hear, and thus will quickly put an end to their conversations. But when text messaging, it's nearly undetectable.

He says he's seen some people try to cheat on tests by messaging each other answers. Back in January or February he was telling me about an incident that he witnessed during a test he was writing. Apparently a group of five or six students from India or Pakistan were sending each other answers over their phones. The professor suspected they were cheating, and confronted some of them. They denied cheating, saying they were just using their phones as calculators. The professor still confiscated their phones anyways. A couple of those students started whispering to each other, so the professor kicked them out of the test.

So it's easy to see how a typical multiple-choice test, with perhaps 75 to 120 questions, could lead to several hundred messages being sent by a student, especially if there's collaboration between several other students. Of course, they probably wouldn't have to cheat on the tests were they not sending messages to one another during class, and instead paying attention to the lecture.

QTFA

[Austaph]

Wireless companies, meanwhile, are rolling out new packages to meet demand. "For a teenager to send thousands of text messages a month is not unusual," said John Johnson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. Last month the company introduced an unlimited texting plan because even its highest bundle of free text messages -- 5,000 a month -- wasn't enough.

The only appropriate response . . .

[Caffeinate]

omg!!1! lol, u r soooo scrued!

Because, jackass

[Rix]

If you can see someone texting, you could probably hear them talking. No really wants to hear your inane conversations.

OMG... The headache...

[__aaclcg7560]

My Dad got screwed by this in a different way. He had text messages turned off because he didn't want to pay a buck for the ten text messages that he gets spammed for every month (I get them too). Sprint recently bought out Nextel and their website now redirects to the Nextel web servers. As a Sprint customer, you now need to re-register on that re-directed website to access your account information. You put in all your information, click the submit button, and an activation code is sent to your phone as a text message. Since my Dad had text messages blocked, he didn't get this activation code. He called support but they have no idea what's going on. So he called me to look into the situation. Text messages was enabled on his phone and I walked him through the registration process. Now he's arguing with Sprint about the 14 text messages that came in during the three day period he had text messages enabled.

Re:OMG... The headache...

[loraksus]

If it's worth your time, try going through the BBB.
Sprint CSRs are infuriatingly incompetent if you go through regular channels - apparantly unable to do simple math, etc. I swear they train their CSRs to act stupid just to get people off the phone.
If you take a look at their BBB record though, you'll be shocked.

Re:OMG... The headache...

[LilWolf]

I've never understood why anyone would put up with paying for messages or calls they receive. It just makes absolutely no sense what so ever. It's like paying for every e-mail you receive(you think spam annoys you now, hah).

In any case, the Finnish operators have solved the issue by offering an bill balance plan. Meaning if your kids bill goes to over, say, 20 euros, he won't be able to make phone calls or send text messages anymore. And as others have mentioned, there are prepaids you can use too to curb your kids phone bill.

Re:OMG... The headache...

[Winckle]

Is it common to get charged for receiving sms in the USA?

In Europe no mobile phone company charges to receive, the EU gets bashed a lot, bu they sure did sort out our cell phone companies.

Re:OMG... The headache...

[loraksus]

That's shocked... in a good way... Generally BBB complaints are handled fairly well.

Re:OMG... The headache...

[GigsVT]

You think bandwidth is free?

Every site DOES pay for every spam recieved. Sure it's a fraction of a penny, but it adds up.

Parental discipline

[Anonymous Coward]

6,807 / 30 days = 226.9 a day
226.9 / 16 waking hours = 14.18125 per hour

I think the parents really need to teach her better things to do with her time.

Re:Parental discipline

[b0s0z0ku]

226.9 / 16 waking hours = 14.18125 per hour

Maybe she was texting internationally or sending multimedia messages?

-b.

What 6807 messages really amounts to

[TheMCP]

Assuming a 31 day month and assuming she sleeps 8 hours a night, that's an average of one text message every 4.3 minutes all day long, every day. Of course in practice she probably has classes in which her teachers won't allow her to sit there typing away on her cell phone, and has homework (if she actually does it), and needs to put the phone down for a few minutes at meals to use her hands to shovel food into her mouth... so I'd guess that in practice during the time she finds available for texting, the actual rate of message transfer is much higher than once every 4.3 minutes.

Frankly if I had a kid sending text messages that often, I'd send them to a psychologist to try to help them figure out why they have this obsessive compulsive problem that they can't stop using the phone, and to help them get over it. A kid who is texting that frantically all the time has *problems*.

Oh, and I'd tell them they have to pay the bill, even if that means paying me back in installments.

Re:What 6807 messages really amounts to

[Lord Apathy]

We also have to take into account messages that are sent to multiple people and those short push button replies. With my phone I can push a button and send yes, no, ok, or fuck off with one push. I love programable phones. Then we have to take into account if she gets charged for incomming messages. Cingular users bend over and grab your ankles. Still even with all this I can't imagine 6000 text messages and my phone has a full keyboard on it. I cringe when thinking about sending that many messages if you have the standard 12 key phone.

Oh yeah she would be paying me back and I would take my 1000 bucks out on her phone. As a parent myself I expect that as my kids get older I will be paying for unexpected but normal child good growing expectations. Bicycles, skateboards, trips to the ER,... bail. But a 1000 buck phone bill. If you don't understand the word cheap please look it up, that will be my picture illistrating it. But a 1000 bucks, not only would she find herself with her phone in a doggy bag but her next phone she would be paying for with her own money.

Re:What 6807 messages really amounts to

[hazem]

Don't forget the inbound messages. My guess is she receives more than she transmits. Suppose she has 8 friend and they're having an 8-way chat.... all the time.

Frankly if I had a kid sending text messages that often,
Our parents were afraid of/bothered by rock and roll/Madonna. We're afraid of/bothered by texting.

It's just the way kids like to communicate today. We've created a very connected society (SMS, IM, etc) and that's what kids are used to... constant communication with all of their friends. It's a new social order, really.

Re:What 6807 messages really amounts to

[Fred Ferrigno]

Our parents were afraid of/bothered by rock and roll/Madonna. We're afraid of/bothered by texting. Was I the only one who tried to read this as a song lyric? Not very catchy.

Re:What 6807 messages really amounts to

[Firethorn]

A kid who is texting that frantically all the time has *problems*.

It's not quite that bad, after all it's .15 to receive one as well - Assume a 50-50 split, that's 8.6 minutes between texts. Still a big issue.

What's also suprising is that she'd manage this high of a bill so quickly. If my parents had given me something similar when I was a kid I'd of gotten a lecture about features and minutes. IE no texting.

Even missing that, I'd find it suprising that they'd text that much quickly enough that the parents don't realize something's up when their phone bill is $100 higher than normal, not $1100.

Yes, I think that texting is a scam right now, thus I refuse to use it.

No one said teenagers are intelligent

[watchingeyes]

When I was a teenager (like, 4 years ago) I KNEW how much texting cost, and at the beginning of each billing cycle cleared all the text messages on my phone so I could monitor how much I sent during the billing cycle and limit my usage.

It took me about 2 and 1/2 minutes of work a month. As I've always maintained, the vast majority of teenagers are far from the sharpest tools in the shed. It isn't exactly a difficult concept.... each text costs money, hence the more texts you send, the higher your bill will be.

Of course I also paid my own phone bill when I got my first phone at age 15. So a good solution would be to tell your kids that if they want a cell phone, pay for it themselves (no age restrictions on pre-paid plans). Pre-paid plans are also good if you pay for your kids' cell plans, because if they use up all of the money on the account, their phone simply stops functioning.

And last but not least, parents who let their kids use a service that is billed based on usage with no restrictions whatsoever kind of deserve to have this happen.

Re:No one said teenagers are intelligent

[neerolyte]

I'm glad someone said "get them to pay for it them self".

I've paid for mine myself ever since I've had one (I'm 21 and have probably had a phone for 5-6 years). My mother simply enforced a rule of the plan must be pre-paid (once I use up my credit the phone is disabled) other than that the choice was completely up to me. I was free to spend as much of my money as I wanted on my phone. I've got what I think is a healthy phone use (I'd never send a text message to someone I could email almost as easily or especially not someone in the room).

Parents just need to make kids responsible. Kids ask for it, give it to them, explain the situation fully and be done with it.

This entire situation is just because parents these days suck. Talk to your kids.

Preemptive strike!

[simpleguy]

Durex.

Nuff said.

Re:Preemptive strike!

[Rob the Bold]

Durex.

Reminds me of this commercial . . . http://youtube.com/watch?v=K45m79fEyz8

Thank God...

[woolio]

...that Americans don't text while driving.

All we need now is the few thousand people driving Hummers do be trying to text their friends while speeding down the interstate in heavy traffic.

Re:Thank God...

[flight_master]

Well, as long as the only people on the interstate are those texting, it serves them right. We don't need that many daft people on the road anyway.

Re:Thank God...

[Jsprat23]

If I had mod points, I'd rate this one +1 Scary. I have a roommate that studies Human Factors Psychology, in particular driving distractions. He and his fellow researchers frequently ask intro psych classes who texts while driving, and they typically get an 80% positive result. It's here right now.

Stupid parents.

[Pyrion]

If they actually paid attention to their cellphone bill, all it would take is a phone call to customer service to add prepaid txt messages for a fraction of what they'd pay after the fact.

That or they could just take away the phone, but this way everyone's happy.

Re:Stupid parents.

[monk3y_boy]

They got a bill for $1000 for a service they could've had for $10. It's simply unconscionable for Verizon to charge one customer 100x what another pays for the identical service.

Re:Stupid parents.

[Pyrion]

But is it Verizon's responsibility to inform customers as to how they might save money, or the customer's responsibility to look for ways to save money?

Ultimately the customer's the one signing the contracts and paying the bills, so if the customer doesn't do that research, is it unconscionable for Verizon to charge the rates at which the customer agrees to?

Students

[rea1l1]

Just think of High school students sitting in class 7 hours a day learning nothing from their bad teachers. They're incredibly bored. They want to talk. They need a stealthy form. That's the main use of texting as a teenager and why it's made such a huge increase this last year.

Wow! that would be...

[toetagger1]

one text message every 4 to 5 minutes for 16 hours a day for 30 days!

I can't write one that fast, but then again, I didn't practice 6,807 times...

It's obviously Verizon's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon should be punished for screwing up a family like that, particularly as their rate plans are QUITE deceptive. In fact they should reimburse the family for all the stress and discomfort - business just screw people every chance they get, huh?

Nothing but a $$$ grab

[Anonymous Coward]

Virgin Mobile is a prepaid re-seller of Sprint service, and they don't charge for incoming text.

So once again, customers whose "loyalty" is enforced by a binding contract are treated like shit.

OMG it's on the front page!

[linefeed0]

The headline in question ("an OMG moment when phone bill arrives") is on the front page of today's Washington Post, although below the fold. Has OMG (or an equally common email acronym such as WTF, LOL, HTH) made the front page of a major American paper before?

Also, one nice side effect of parents irate at phone companies who have just hit their texting kids with an OMG bill is that the big cell carriers are now offering cheaper unlimited text message plans, which is good for those of us in IT that rely on cell phones as a pager and receive probably hundreds of pages per month.

Philippines

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Philippines, to send a text costs just 1 peso (2 cents US) and it's free to receive them. So the pricing structure here is totally out of whack. What's more, it costs 25 cents to send a text there so I can imagine what people pay to send a lot of texts overseas since there doesn't seem to be any plan for discount international text messages.

Unlimited

[Kuvter]

And to think they could have gotten 'unlimited texting' for only $5 a month.

Why Cell Phones are Bad For Teens

[i_wanna_be_a_scienti]

Hold on, my friend just texted me again.

jk
Persionally, i think that cell phones are stupid things for teenagers. it means taht you are always in touch with everyone you know, and that isn't really good. it puts alot of pressure on the teens to keep up social relations forever, and they are being pressured like this 24/7. If it were just calling, then it would be a bit easier, ebcause you can only talk to one person at at time. however, with texting, you can have unlimited converstaions at once. Imagine what that would do to the psych - talk about mulit-tasking! And the worst part is is that kids at age 6 or 7 are now getting cell phones. Talk about rediculous! most of them can't even spell and they're texting and talking like crazy.

The solution for this? Ban normal cell phones for everyone under the age of 21, and let the only cell phones allowed for people that age be one button cell phones with no screen that only call 911.

Re:Why Cell Phones are Bad For Teens

[b0s0z0ku]

Ban normal cell phones for everyone under the age of 21, and let the only cell phones allowed for people that age be one button cell phones with no screen that only call 911.

Some people under 21 or even under 18 have full-time paying jobs, y'know. Not all teenagers are irresponsible fscks...

-b.

Re:Why Cell Phones are Bad For Teens

[Vegeta99]

Just a quick question: How old are you?

Re:Why Cell Phones are Bad For Teens

[i_wanna_be_a_scienti]

Yes, but most are
besides, isn't the initial point of cell phones for emergencies only? so this would ensure that it was a real emergency, not an 'OMG, Dave got asked out!!'

Re:Why Cell Phones are Bad For Teens

[i_wanna_be_a_scienti]

15

Re:Why Cell Phones are Bad For Teens

[smash]

Here's a life tip (you mention a few posts down that you're 15) - if a problem can be solved by either legislation, or those affected pulling their finger out, option 2 is generally the more acceptable way about going about it.

Legislation is just simply not required to solve this problem. All that is required is either the parents to be parents and make the kid pay her debt off, or take the phone off this particular kid. There are plenty of people out there who manage just fine in controlling their spending habits thanks. The rest of society does not need to be inconvenienced due to the in-action of a couple of parents.

Once you start down the slippery slope of banning *potentially* non-beneficial stuff in our lives - where do you stop? Sex can transmit STDs, do we ban it from society for non-procreational purposes? Big Macs will eventually kill you if thats all you eat. Do we ban those too? What about coca cola? Ice-cream? TV? The internet? etc...

Re:Why Cell Phones are Bad For Teens

[i_wanna_be_a_scienti]

good point
However, the problem is is that most parents don't do anything about it - even if they have the unlimited plan
cost is one thing
but the main point i tried to make was the psychological impact
i've seen what its done to the kids around me - its not pretty
and with what you said - they were all examples of 'too much of a good thing is bad'. Thats what happening now with cell phones. and instead of paying off these bills, or talking to their friends, they should be studying something educational that will help them get a career in life.
The world isn't going to go down the tube if Dave broke up with Mandy. It will go down the tube if the person being notified about it doesn't study because she's 'learning' about it, when she could have learned something that could help the entire world.

Re:Why Cell Phones are Bad For Teens

[smash]

However, the problem is is that most parents don't do anything about it - even if they have the unlimited plan

And, in doing nothing, the only people they are inconveniencing is themselves. Not a problem, in my opinion. :)

Work it off, problem solved

[Anonymous Coward]

I really do not see what the problem is. Tell the young lady that she can have texting again as soon as she pays off that bill. She's bound to have an allowance of some kind, and can do other work to pay the bill (chores for neighbours etc). IOW, if she's a modern teen, she's got money. Make her pay it off (well, the parent will have to pay the bill, but now the kid owes the parent). Till then, no opportunity to increase the bill.

Simple.

I really don't understand why parents can't seem to think of this on their own.

Re:Work it off, problem solved

[Fenresulven]

Quote from the article:
Indeed. Sofia will be working in her parents' retail store this summer to pay off her debt

because it is a contract

[fmobus]

When you sign a contract saying 1 = $0.15, you are making the option of not spending $15 for a flat-rate you don't find necessary. If you think you're gonna be using lots and lots of SMSs that month, you should upgrade to the flat-rate plan.

Also, your analogy is flawed: is more like, suppose 1/3 liter Coca-Cola cans were $1 each and 3-liter bottles $2. At the beginning of the month, family A buys 10 such bottles. Family B, however, buys 3 cans each and every day. They will get the same amount of Coca-Cola, but family A saved 10 bucks.

Everyone knows larger packages are cheaper in terms of cost-to-benefit ratio. If you feel you're likely to reach the flat-rate pay-off limit, sign for a flat-rate. If your kids are not manageable enough, use pre-paid plans or punish them cutting other amenities to teach them to value their parents' hard-earned money.

Of course, there is still the wild WTF of having TO PAY to RECEIVE SMS in US, which simply doesn't make any sense to me

Re:because it is a contract

[AK Marc]

No, it's like a restaurant that sells wine by the glass and by the bottle. You order 2 glasses of wine, and they open a fresh bottle for you. Then, when you decide you want two more glasses, you just order the bottle, the two your drank are deleted and you get the rest of the bottle for the bottle price. The "bucket" it all comes out of is exactly the same regardless of how you order or consume it. Thus, when you reach the high-use version, you get it backdated. You aren't having them open a brand new bottle for each and every glass, as you are in your example. There you rightly pay for packaging and convenience. One is a billing smoke and mirrors and the other is crating products with different packaging, shapes, sizes and utility.

Re:because it is a contract

[Achromatic1978]

Great idea, but of course we know the reality is that they won't do that. Or they will, but they'll expect a better tip as a result of the 'good service' they provided in letting us do so. So it'll all be the same in the end.

Re:because it is a contract

[AK Marc]

The reality is that they will do it. I have done it. As for the "better tip" that is something that is between the waiter and you, and the waiter isn't the person that makes such a call for pricing food. It's not like you can tell the waiter "I'll take the steak for $1 and I'll tip you $30 on it." The managers would make such calls for food, and usually for the wine as well.

Why not use IM client that uses data instead?

[xjerky]

I use Verichat on my Treo and am logged into AIM, Yahoo, and MSN at all times...can even be alerted when certain people log on. I chat often using IMs back and forth and I don't pay a penny extra...why don't more people do this?

Re:Why not use IM client that uses data instead?

[loraksus]

Maybe because Treos sort of cost $600?

Re:Why not use IM client that uses data instead?

[xjerky]

And? There are IM clients which use data that run over Java, so most phones should be able to run it.

Re:Why not use IM client that uses data instead?

[AndrewNeo]

Why would anyone in their right mind use Verizon in the first place? Yet here we are, one of the largest subscriber networks in the US.

Re:Why not use IM client that uses data instead?

[boo19]

You know what? You're right.

Re:Why not use IM client that uses data instead?

[loraksus]

Then you need to get a decent data plan, which is usually more of a pain in the ass than SMS is.
I've had Sprint start billing me per kb even though I had unlimited several times (seems that the unlimited feature was "accidentally" turned off by their systems. Called in, spent an hour with the mental defective on the phone and got it resolved, but goddamn, what a hassle...

Re:Why not use IM client that uses data instead?

[Glyphstream]

Well Treos are 600 bucks, but even for those of us who are willing to shell out that much, most IM clients on them and other PDA phones have a significant impact on battery life.

Also is the fact that since most don't have these phones, you'd be more limited to IMing people who are at a computer. Most phones, if I understand correctly, use SMS for AIM and the like anyways, so it's not like therels any difference.

For most, it's more cost effective, allows a larger number of people to be reached, and usually both.

Er...

[mutube]

You've never had a psychotic ex-girlfriend.

(Yes, I know this is Slashdot...)

Re:Er...

[glenstar]

...or had a road-warrior type of job. I spent three years running a public company and one month got a bill for several thousand dollars. The bill was for something along the lines of 12,000 text messages. That was when I slapped myself for being a dolt and not reading that the stupid TMobile Oz IM client uses SMS as its communication endpoint. Mind you, that was my personal phone (not, unfortunately company subsidized)... Turns out each of those "ok" or "sounds good" messages were costing me .25/each (after the first thousand or so). That's some expensive bandwidth.

Allow me to begin then!

[plasmacutter]

first off.. the people hit with the $70 charge are lobbyists for a huge chemical company, and thus make so much cash they have to burn it and use it as toilet paper.

second off.. the people hit with the $70 charge are lobbyists for a huge chemical company and thus deserve every tiny annoyance they can't bribe off their backs.

lobbying is a sinecure and lobbying for huge corporations is the second most immoral thing on the planet.. behind serial violent crime.

Re:Allow me to begin then!

[nanojath]

Lobbying... is the second most immoral thing on the planet.. behind serial violent crime.

Sooo... you're saying I got one freebie before I'm as bad as a lobbyist?

The late 90s

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to 1999, USA!

COST != PRICE

[bigtrike]

Cost of providing a service has absolutely nothing to do with the price charged for it.

Re:COST != PRICE

[zippthorne]

This is true, but it ignores what most geeks who buy a cell phone really want to do: Buy a device for which the data has some known cost. Use that device to send messages, make calls, download movies, listen to internet radio, have interactive maps, or whatever else we can figure out to do with it.

We'd like the price per bit to be either constant, or depend on various factors, like availability. In short, phone calls should cost slightly more than texting or anything else where latency doesn't matter. Time-of-day pricing is also accepted as it's a method of shaping the demand through market forces, allowing the providers to size the network closer to the average.

Anyway, that's the ideal. It'd be nice if someone did that, but none of the companies seem to have any desire to. I think it's an opportunity here that someone with deep pockets is probably missing. In the future, there will be communications companies, and it will be very much like this, but how long it will take is a mystery.

What's weird is that the cell providers' rates are like the post office giving away first-class almost for free and charging the big bucks for the bulk mail.

Re:COST != PRICE

[heinousjay]

No one ever got rich serving the geek market, so don't wait for a big company to care.

Re:COST != PRICE

[timeOday]

Cost of providing a service has absolutely nothing to do with the price charged for it.

That's true sometimes. Those are the situations that cry out for legislation. I'm not talking about government setting the price for SMS, but rather changing the regulatory environment for foster competition in the cellphone industry, which would force the price down to around the cost of providing the service. Auctioning bandwidth to the highest bidder for their exclusive use is a surefire recipe for high prices and lack of competition.

Re:COST != PRICE

[toddestan]

On the other hand, a call uses more resources than a text message. You would think that the cell phone providers would encourage text messenging over a call, as that would release some of the burden on what is already an overstrained network. Not to mention they would also be able to save money by needing less infastructure. However, I guess that would just make too much sense.

Re:COST != PRICE

[zippthorne]

Everyone else is going to realize that bits are bits eventually. Then they'll be commoditized like everything else. It's not a question of if. It's a question of when. You don't even have to convince everyone. You just need to convince one billionaire and his five or six congressmen that there's a market inefficiency just waiting to be exploited.

Re:COST != PRICE

[my $anity 0]

No, that's untrue, except in a strict monopoly. Phone plans have plenty of hooks, but if one provider offered SMS messages for one-tenth or one-hundredth of everyone else, it would be popular. Price is determined where supply meets demand, at the profit optimization point. Supply is determined by cost.

Re:COST != PRICE

[monk3y_boy]

Only if demand is perfectly inelastic, as in a monopoly. At the other end, there's a minimal profit price point for a commodity.

Re:COST != PRICE

[heinousjay]

If bits are bits, then why do people care so very much about obtaining specific sequences of them? It's not the bits that are important, it's what they encode. Good luck convincing someone there's an exploitable market in something people wouldn't be willing to buy, only download free.

Re:COST != PRICE

[zippthorne]

Now you're just being obtuse. We were talking about bit transport channels and the prices thereof. To the shipping business, mass is mass, but that doesn't mean that a kilogram of platinum is worth the same as a kilogram of gravel.

$200 = divorce?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are completely divorced from reality. How in God's name did you manage to get married in the first place -- or even progress to the milestones before it? How did you even get a date in your life? Save your wife from wasting any more of her life and file for divorce now.

Re:$200 = divorce?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, on the flip side....

A while back, I put my SO on some of my credit cards. She had a lucrative career, but she only got jobs now and then. Not steady income but big lump sums. She explained to me that she had ruined her credit as a teen, and I got tired of having to leave work whenever she needed to rent a car.

Well, she started using the cards to support her business (to pay for advertising) and ended up running up huge monthly bills in the $200.00 a month range. She kept assuring me she would pay it back, but before long I found I owed over 40K. (Of course, it wasn't like she paid nothing toward the cards during this time... just that no matter how much she paid she didn't keep up with the bills.)

Also, the bottom seems to have fallen out of her career, she's been in a slump for a while. (The bills increased rapidly during the start of the slump, too, as she tried to maintain her former lifestyle using the cards while waiting for her next big score which never came.)

The moral? You have a right to object strongly to any bill that involves you even if it is only for one month. Nip it in the bud. Divorce? Some women get testy when you take away their credit cards (or phone as the case may be). She called her lawyer after I shut down my cards she was using, we worked it out later but it was touch and go. Once she had a lawyer, I had to get one of course, more money flushed down the toilet but oh, well.

Re:$200 = divorce?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have the same problem as the "$200?! OMG, DIVORCE!!" guy -- either you had no idea who you were marrying or you never established fundamental ground rules regarding finances, whether prior to or during marriage.

Re:$200 = divorce?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We worked it out later..."

You're still with this fucking bitch?!

Get out now, unless you enjoy the prospect of being a Jerry Springer freakshow?

Re:Jew

[b0s0z0ku]

Back to the oven with you!

Firing squad followed by dumping your ashes in international waters for you! (As happened to a certain famous Nazi who thought he was safe in Argentina.)

-b.

Texting Plan in Numbers

[madsheep]

I saw someone earlier mention Verizon offers the unlimited family texting for $15.00 a month. If they had that, it would take 73.3 months to equate to $1100.00. Then again I can't believe she's smiling and on the thumbnail pic for that story. Her family should ban her from texting anything even if it SNF (so not fair).

Hell, I'd probably make her stand in front of Wal-Mart with one of those big signs and it'd say "I'm a loser - I raised my parents cell phone bill by $1000 because I am a moron."

Downunder..

[chibiace]

..In New Zealand, Vodafone offers 2000 txts for 10$/month, or 6$/month for unlimited calling/video calling/txting/pxting to one person, both prepaid.

Ah fools

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when the old motrollo mini-brick 1.5g phones came in, with texting and 5 hour battery life... them were the days. Texting was free, but then holding the phone while typing took both hands and some sort of support for massive weight.

I remember when sms charges came... around about 1998 if i rememebr right. And even then, the change the message centre trick worked nicely until 2001. Then the charges got high... i think 12 was and still is the standard rate, but they've been free in most add in plans. I've sent my last texts though, im usually nearer a pc and i can send of texts free and quicker on that, the phone just makes a handy receiver.

Did i see somone say a charge to receive messages... now that sounds crazy, what happens when you get spam messages?

This is easy to understand ECO 101

[aepervius]

They charge as much as the consumer is ready to pay. Proof is in the pudding : despite horrendous SMS price in the US (compared to europe for example) people are increasingly using them. They will stop raising price when consumer stops to be ready to pay the price (stop using the service).

Re:This is easy to understand ECO 101

[ottothecow]

As another poster mentioned, you are locked into a 2-year contract (almost everyone is). You can not leave due to a raise in the text message rates. Some people try to use text message increases as a change in contract loophole to break their contracts but it only works when you get an inept customer service person answering (breaking due to a per-minute cost change or a plan cost change however is guaranteed to work). They claim that since it is an add-on service that you do not have the right to break your contract without paying the $200 cancellation when its price increases.

Re:This is easy to understand ECO 101

[WilliamSChips]

The fact that you are not using the metaphor right implies that you are using a dying metaphor. Please stop.

Re:This is easy to understand ECO 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, basic economics, so consider the scenario in Europe.
They are tweaking the free the market in favor of the costumers. And it works, you get bigger competition, so much lower prices. That's also basic economics.
Some European rules that increase competition: (well, not all apply everywhere in Europe, but these all apply in my country:)
- No bundling of contract with a mobile. That's illegal.
- Easy way to get out of a contract. Contracts for X years aren't that popular.
- You can keep your number when you switch provider.
- No charges for receiving SMS, and no charges for receiving local calls.

Basically, lawmakers here go after most things that lower competition (except for better price and quality off course).
That's not a "bad socialist thing", it's in fact working so well, because it enables more "pure" capitalism.

You forget about the daughter

[aepervius]

20 years old, living in her parents (basement) and not even paying herself the phone... And the parents whine for 70$ (I easily get 40 on my bill and I do only phone call, no text messaging...).

Re:You forget about the daughter

[plasmacutter]

I fall into this category. i'm in school and racking up tremendous debt while doing mindbending an exhausting amounts of work. you can't just put together age+living with parents = loser like that.

Re:You forget about the daughter

[Tsagadai]

Well yes you can I am also at university with debt over my head but the motivation and independance to stand on my own feet and not still suckle.

BAh

[aepervius]

off topic : slashdot is not even accepting the (-euro sign) ? Or do I have to do some kind of weird html escape magic to get my trustee euro monetary sign ?

Re:BAh

[Ash-Fox]

slashdot is not even accepting the (-euro sign) ?

Yes, but remember comments are written in HTML on Slashdot. Slashdot accepts the €uro sign.

do I have to do some kind of weird html escape magic to get my trustee euro monetary sign ?

Nope, nothing weird, the code is 'euro'.

Depends on the keyboard

[carabela]

Exchanging the F5 key could be very expensive, depending on what keyboard you use.

A i-phone with a 2 year plan may end up costing...

[Joe The Dragon]

more as it is $599 or $699 and at&t may force you into a $40 month data plan with a voice plan on top of that. Texting is $5 more a month with no limit

Blood

[Renraku]

American companies are quick to smell blood and jump on it.

Instead of, "This technology starts out expensive, and gets cheaper over time" is more like "This technology starts out expensive, and gets cheaper if its not that popular, but will get more expensive if it is popular and we have people to exploit."]

Granted the purpose of companies is to make money, they aren't providing products for the consumers anymore. They're first-and-foremost trying to provide money to their shareholders. Once a company moves from providing products and services for the consumers to providing happy numbers for the shareholders, its all downhill from there.

Eventually you get EA Madden 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, with minor changes, released at full price. Every year.

Or text messages who's cost is skyrocketing.

Perfect example, most companies offer unlimited texting for a decent fee. If they can do millions of texts for $15, why do they charge 1/1000th of that fee PER TEXT if you don't? Another example. Don't even DREAM of using data services on your phone if you don't have a plan to cover it. Their default rate is something like 20 or 30 cents per kilobyte, which there are 10-100 of on each small webpage.

Damn, you're short-sighted.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are not disrupting anyone else's attention beside their own.

That may be true, at the very, very beginning. But soon enough, that one kid will be sending text messages to other kids in the same classroom. Now we've got at least two kids who are distracted.

Soon other kids will see the first group of kids sending messages, without any sort of punishment. Soon enough, they will all be sending messages to one another, and thus paying no attention to what is being taught.

Now, while cell-phone-babbling during class (or movies, or theaters) is wrong and should be punished, it doesn't justify destroying private property.

Let's suppose for a moment that the kid had a stash of heroin in his locker. Sure, he paid for it, so it could be considered his private property. But it's still a very good idea for the police to confiscate it, and destroy it. It's for the kid's own benefit. The same goes for the use of a cell phone in class. It's harmful to have such a device in class, and thus is should be eliminated.

And please, don't forget that my tax dollars, and possibly yours, are going towards paying for the schools that these kids attend. I don't want my hard-earned money going towards providing an educational environment where these kids can sit around sending text messages to each other all day, ignoring what is being taught. This is especially so for those shitty inner-city schools. We're giving those kids a damn good chance to make something useful of themselves, but instead they choose to be dumbasses and piss it away so they can send moronic text messages.

Re:Damn, you're short-sighted.

[fmobus]

It is not short-sightedness: I'd rather call it "no hand-holding policy" or "this should be on parents'". If you text a lot, your phone bill will grow madly and your parents will notice and act accordingly - cut phone usage or enforce responsibility with prepaid alternatives. If you don't pay attention on class, your grades are likely to drop, which should get the parents to act too.

Also, is this sending-sms-to-same-room-classmates thing so common in US? What's the point of sending a full-fledged SMS message for a person sitting 5 meters away from you? In my country, we do use SMS a lot (despite its costs), but during classes, paper-and-pen short messages are more sensible (and cheaper). It is even easy to multi-cast! And for the log-freaks like me, using a notebook (the stationery, not the portable computer) kinda solves the "keeping a memento" problem someone mentioned elsewhere.

Let's suppose for a moment that the kid had a stash of heroin in his locker. Sure, he paid for it, so it could be considered his private property. But it's still a very good idea for the police to confiscate it, and destroy it. It's for the kid's own benefit. The same goes for the use of a cell phone in class. It's harmful to have such a device in class, and thus is should be eliminated.

Except that it is illegal to own such thing, right?

And please, don't forget that my tax dollars, and possibly yours, are going towards paying for the schools that these kids attend. I don't want my hard-earned money going towards providing an educational environment where these kids can sit around sending text messages to each other all day, ignoring what is being taught. This is especially so for those shitty inner-city schools. We're giving those kids a damn good chance to make something useful of themselves, but instead they choose to be dumbasses and piss it away so they can send moronic text messages.

For I'm not American, my tax-money is not going this way, BUT I wouldn't mind having my tax-money spent on a learning environment where kids learn the way it's best for them. Seriously, if I the teacher is crappy, I'd rather not pay attention AT ALL - I will doodle that cool idea I had, sleep, text or else (or just leave, when in University environment with no attendance requirements). Maturity should be a side-effect gained by those who are responsible enough to pay attention on class and score good grades. Those who aren't (and whose parents don't give a shit about), let Darwin sort out.

If this sounds too "everyone on his own"-ish for you, have the teachers or educational supervisors take deficient grades students case-by-case to see what is going wrong. If the kid doesn't want to be helped, well, they can always flip burgers for life.

Re:Damn, you're short-sighted.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not short-sightedness: I'd rather call it "no hand-holding policy" or "this should be on parents'".

It's very short-sighted to think we can rely on most parents to do the right thing, even when they're faced with a small financial crisis.

Also, is this sending-sms-to-same-room-classmates thing so common in US?

Yes. And not just in the US. Most Western nations have a pretty serious problem with phone text messaging in class. I have cousins who are teachers in the UK, and an uncle who teaches in Poland. They've told me before about the problems cell phones cause in their classrooms. It's reasonable to believe that most other teachers face similar problems.

For I'm not American, my tax-money is not going this way, BUT I wouldn't mind having my tax-money spent on a learning environment where kids learn the way it's best for them. Seriously, if I the teacher is crappy, I'd rather not pay attention AT ALL - I will doodle that cool idea I had, sleep, text or else (or just leave, when in University environment with no attendance requirements).

It's not the teachers. Many of them are very well-educated, knowledgable and caring. They want the students to succeed. It's the students who go out of their way to be fuckups. After all, let's just look at who has a record of success. The teacher must have at least one university-level degree to be able to teach in most Western nations. They've shown they can make something of themselves. On the other hand, we have little Paco, who wears his pants down around his ankles, and sends text message to Shaneekwa, who just learned she's pregnant at 14. Both Paco and Shaneekwa are major failures in life.

Those who aren't (and whose parents don't give a shit about), let Darwin sort out.

Darwin won't do a damn thing about my wrecked car when it gets stolen by one of these little fucks while they're high on crack, and then gets driven into a phone pole. Why did it get stolen? Because that shit-for-a-kid was too busy sending text messages in class to get even the most basic education, now can't even find work as a corner store clerk or fast-food worker, and must resort to petty crime to survive.

There's a cure for sms+mms addict teens

[Anonymous Coward]

Give them their damn stupid phone, then send them to clean elephant shit in a circus to pay the bills. Cellphones are a ripoff that young, inexperienced or simply stupid people cannot resist to, but usually they realize the damage they do to their family when it's too late.
Some people got ruined here in the EU; don't make the same mistakes.

context, context

[fmobus]

I know you're talking about condoms, but for me, durex is synonym for adhesive-tape.

But it could solve it too: just bury the phone keypad in 5 layers of tape.

Well, that explains a lot . . .

[cashman73]

If kids are starting to better communicate in short abbreviations via text message and such, maybe this is the next step in the evolution of language. One of these days, people will be communicating in R2D2-speak . . . with short beeps and whirrs and whistles . . . no words whatsoever!

Into this evolution, Yoda-speak goes, somehow,. . . I think. ;-)

Some plans do not allow upgrades

[gelfling]

My Sprint plan simply does not allow one to add infinite SMS w/o scrapping the whole plan and starting over. Although 600 per on 3 of the phones, 500 on the 4th and unlimited on one seems to work so far

Re:Some plans do not allow upgrades

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, there's a variation on this.

Most companies allow "upgrades" (ie, more money). Some even allow "downgrades" (ie, less money). However, most of them consider that to be a new contract.

So if you've been with a company for, say, 18 months out of a 24 month contract and you decide to add unlimited texting, *bing* you're there for another two years.

Re:Some plans do not allow upgrades

[gelfling]

Same thing is true for phone upgrades, such as the upgrades you buy under Sprint's own 'loyalty' rebate plan that gives you $150 more off, every other year. That extends the plan for another whatever 12 or 24 months.

Try shopping around...

[Anonymous Coward]

These are always the most popular carriers...shop around you don't need popular carriers...all there good for is milking your money....(mycricket.com) is very nicely priced 45$ for unlimited anytime,long distance,and text message...not everywhere has coverage but like i said "shop around"....where is does have coverage it beats sprint and new at&t on clarity....

sms shows there is no real competition in the mobi

[Anonymous Coward]

the cost of entering such a market is just too high. the companies practically collude with each other to keep prices so high. none of them have any interest in giving customer real quick and easy access to their usage data so they don't go over limit. the sms pricing is also absurd, in this day of broad band we are paying a nickel for a few bytes of data? i wonder how many sms messages they could fit into the bandwidth of an average phone call!!!

Breakdown

[Joebert]

6,807 per 30 days
226.9 per 24 hours
9.45 per 60 minutes
0.157 per 60 seconds
0.002 per second


Wait a second, 0.002 ?
Verizon ?

hmmmmmm...

Parent is correct

[Tickletaint]

Parent is the only reply to get it right. It's not that the cellular providers are ripping us off (well, at least not just that)—it's that SMS bandwidth is extremely limited (see also here, here, here). For shame, Slashdot!

The concept of "good parent" is new...

[Etherwalk]

Once upon a time, your child was him/her self, and turned out well or turned out poorly. There wasn't today's constant quest to blame a parent for all of a child's problems or issues.

A child is a human being, after all--and (s)he encounters many situations, and many environments, while growing up. The home environment is important, and is terribly neglected in today's society--but it's not everything. Similarly, teachers and schooling aren't everything. And scheduled activities aren't everything. And television isn't everything. And free time isn't everything. They all come together and mix it up with a child's nature.

A good parent, yes, can do a tremendous amount. But a good parent functions (largely) within the context of an external world, and some children are harder to raise than others, good parent or no.

Data services on mobile networks

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I used to work in the Engineering department of a mobile service provider, so the information here may be somewhat out of date, but the principles are probably still the same today.

In general, mobile communications networks don't use the same channel for everything. For example, you might have several frequencies available, use one as a control channel (registering handsets as they move around; handshaking to set up calls, etc.) and then have several channels used for voice data.

Now, it's not unusual for small data messages, such as SMS, to be carried on the control channel rather than voice channels. That means there is much less capacity available for such messages than for voice, because they have only a single channel, and they are also in competition with all the network registration traffic, etc.

Moreover, the testing overhead for data messages can be higher than voice calls. Certainly for the network I worked on, every call type was made between every possible combination of approved handsets and checked by a real person before new software went live. (Yes, that did take months.)

So in fact, from a technical point of view, it's entirely unfair to compare voice and data transactions. That probably doesn't matter in practice, of course, because prices will no doubt be set by what the market will bear rather than what it costs to provide the service. That usually means voice and basic texting are relatively cheap these days, but things like photo messaging (or whatever the bonus feature du jour is) tend to cost more.

Re:Data services on mobile networks

[Have Blue]

Why has this situation persisted despite the explosive growth of text messaging? Why hasn't a new channel or one of the voice channels been reallocated as a dedicated phone-to-phone small packet transport?

Re:Data services on mobile networks

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how Engineers design phone networks.

Re:Data services on mobile networks

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Such decisions are inevitably made as a result of both technical and economic concerns. The bottom line is that fundamentally changing your set-up like that is a very hard thing to do in practice.

In protocol terms, you don't just reallocate some bandwidth. You also have to consider what control channel information might be required to reserve appropriate space on the data channel(s) you're now using for your messages, for one thing.

In software terms, you're talking about significantly changing and completely retesting all the system routing software at every level across your entire network. As I mentioned elsewhere, we used to do that exhaustively and manually, with each new release of system software taking literally months to approve, and similar lengths of time involved in approving new handsets for use on the network.

Then you have to deal with all the handsets themselves, which may or may not have any easy means to upgrade their software to use your new protocol. That in turn may mean forcing customers to switch, with the associated costs in subsidies to keep upgrade costs for customers reasonable and/or increased churn where you lose customers who like their old set and don't see any need to switch.

For these sorts of reasons, mobile networks tend to change through evolution rather than revolution. The simple fact is that messaging has outgrown its anticipated role, and the old systems are struggling to keep up, but they are keeping up. As long as that's true, it's hard to see the mobile operators spending pretty much a fortune just to switch protocols in a way that will inconvenience some customers and bring few apparent benefits to any of the rest. Look at e-mail, web pages and the history of Internet standards, and you'll see a similar picture for similar reasons.

It's not only kids...

[Etherwalk]

Listen carefully to the grammar and syntax of our newscasters. Our newspapers. Our popular entertainment. Compare it to the same forty or fifty years ago.

Some of them do make an effort. But the breadth of vocabulary, the precision of their diction, and the depth of their thought have--for the most part--declined over the years. Multiply that difference by about a thousand and you'll know what's happened in the New York City Public Schools. (Once upon a time, they were among the best in the world.)

There are some counterexamples... but not many.

Re:It's not only kids...

[WilliamSChips]

Do you want to tell me that Lost and Heroes are less complex than I Love Lucy--rather, name me one TV show from the 50s to 70s that even approaches either of those shows in the depth of thought? Do you want to tell the guy who wrote this that? The belief that the world is declining in standards is a belief that has been stated by old codgers since the earliest Greek poets and probably even earlier. Yet, every time, it's wrong, and the new generation is superior to the old.

Re:It's not only kids...

[Etherwalk]

I did say there were counterexamples. I would be interested in a syntactical analysis of the shows in question, actually. Although the comparison is flawed, since they target different audiences. A better comparison might be Everybody Loves Raymond and I Love Lucy. (Though I haven't seen the latter in too long to draw it well.)

Depth of thought is a hard thing to measure--and there's no question in my mind that we've seen a lot of work that's reshaped the boundaries of the medium of television, and that has made it richer. Some standards are declining, though. Most newscasters don't deserve the name, and don't make an assumption of intelligence on the part of the viewer--quite the opposite, it seems. The sound bytes become the news. And are frequently improper English.

In terms of naming one TV show, I don't have the background in that television to give an example, and there may well not be one--so far as I know, multi-season plot arcs took quite a while to penetrate popular television. Also, complexity and depth are too different things--there's no doubt that Heroes is somewhat complex, but is it deep? By which I mean, mostly, to what degree does it explore the human condition? To what degree does it provoke thought about our own lives? Mmm... all right, maybe most of I Love Lucy wasn't that deep, either. =)

The point is really the influence that the medium has on behavior, in any event. (At least, the influence that it does the way it's most frequently used.) Mmm... try looking up the influence of television on Shangri-La, actually.

Also, as for it being wrong every time, see the dark ages.

Re:It's not only kids...

[The One and Only]

I think the point was more about language than artistic depth, and in many ways the best series of today are artistically richer and deeper than the TV series of yesteryear. Nonetheless, look up old political speeches from the 60's and 70's (for instance). There has been a remarkable decline there.

Re:It's not only kids...

[dr_dank]

Something similar crossed my mind looking at old print advertisements. Even as recently as the 40s-50s it wasn't usual to see an ad with paragraphs of copy extolling the virtues of their particular product. These days, if it can't be scanned in a second and its contents understood, it won't pass muster.

Did people actually read that stuff or has the collective attention span shortened?

Is text expensive or voice insanely cheap?

[lennier]

7 cents a minute seems insanely cheap to me - either that or New Zealand cellphone costs are insanely expensive. In NZ, voice costs around $1/minute on cellphone. (I pay $20 monthly with Vodafone for 20 GSM minutes; this is an entry-level plan but fairly standard). For a 1100 minute plan, I'd pay $370/month - $0.33/minute, rock-bottom mininum.

Meanwhile, texts begin at 20c each and for $10/month drop to 0.5c each.

http://vodafone.co.nz/personal/plans-services/plan s/you-choose/index.jsp

Re:Is text expensive or voice insanely cheap?

[petermgreen]

its insanely expensive in NZ

Re:Is text expensive or voice insanely cheap?

[pbaer]

Do you get any freebies in NZ like call after 9 and it doesn't cost minutes, or call same carrier to same carrier and it's free?

Close to home.

[The MAZZTer]

My cousin racked up $200 on his family's phone bill because he thought SMS was included for free in the plan. I'm glad I'm not him (he's gotta pay it off himself).

Too bad most people aren't like you

[Ogemaniac]

They yap everywhere. They have annoying ring-tones. Hell, I have never heard the ring of any cell phone I have ever owned. I put it on vibrate the minute I buy it and never turn it off. At work, it is either in my pocket or on the desk next to me. At home, I put it on my desk, where I am likely to hear the vibrate from most of the rooms in the house. Even if I don't, I don't care. Anyone who matters will leave a message.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

[photomonkey]

By my math, she's sending a bit over 220 text messages a day (30-day period), or roughly 9/hour for a 24-hour span of time. Now assuming this snot-nosed little brat actually eats, sleeps and showers, she's sending in the ballpark of 20 texts PER WAKING HOUR. That's a text message SENT every three minutes (unless they're charging for received messages as well).

The money aside, what have her parents failed to do for her that she has that amount of freetime? Maybe it's time to tell her to get a fucking job and earn her luxuries the same way the rest of us have to.

Why does a teen need a 'family' phone anyway? Children have survived society for millennia without the option for 'instant' communications with their parents anyway. Besides, if you're turning your kid loose on the malls, parks, parking lots, etc. all day every day anyway, and you feel that they're immature enough to have a need to get in touch with mommy and daddy all the time, they probably have too much freedom or too much unsupervised time.

Being a parent is not only a matter of setting limits, but rigidly enforcing them. You are the head of the family. You 'run' the kids. Not the other way around.

Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

[man_ls]

"(unless they're charging for received messages as well)."

The last time I was on a pay-per-use texting plan, I had to pay for receiving them as well as sending them at about 15c/per. Imagine that said individual is communicating with 2 or 3 other people, sending them each about 3 messages, and getting about the same in return. There's your quota right there.

The Phone Companies Are Obviously Out to Bilk Us

[okmijnuhb]

Why can't the phone companies simply employ a plan which changes according to our usage?
Because the profit enormously from our inability to correctly guess our expected usage.

Better than prepaid: Cricket Wireless

[AtariDatacenter]

For those areas lucky enough to have Cricket Wireless, they're a nice hybrid between prepaid and regular telephone service. Flat rate. Here are teir plans.

$40/month gets you unlimited calling minutes, unlimited US long distance, unlimited text/picture/IM.

The "high end package" of $60/month gets you all that, plus use of all Cricket coverage areas, voice mail, caller id, call waiting, 3-way calling, 200 nationwide roaming minutes per month. (After you hit your 200 minutes, roaming stops working unless you pay up for some more roaming minutes for that month.)

If I had kids, I'd get them Cricket service in a heartbeat.

Re:Better than prepaid: Cricket Wireless

[Yosho]

Unfortunately, in both my and a friend's experiences, they have a miniscule coverage range, bad signal quality, and force you to buy crippled phones. On top of that, if you buy a phone that has a problem and you want to return it, their answer is basically, "Deal with it." I can't recommend them at all, regardless of the plans' prices.

Re:Better than prepaid: Cricket Wireless

[AtariDatacenter]

I've heard some good stores about the service and coverage area, so they may vary from region to region. I guess that's a good point, to check with other subscribers in the area, to see the local quality signal. (Since they ride on other carrier's networks, they're not building their own. So they're subject to what is already there.)

Mind letting us know which region(s) are causing you grief?

Re:Better than prepaid: Cricket Wireless

[Yosho]

For what it's worth, I'm in northwestern San Antonio. I'm using T-Mobile now, and I haven't had any problems with them.

the american mobile phone industry SUCKS

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get way cheaper plans in Australia, often with unlimited SMSes. And there's no notion of 'receiver pays' which would get laughed at here.

must filter out articles with text lingo in title

[WannaBeGeekGirl]

my brain almost stopped me from reading this in time, not quite. i have to work on those cognitive behavioral skills more! i refuse to conform to the text language society!

as for phone bills that are out of hand. didn't we deal with this when 1-900 number chat lines came out in the 80s or 90s or something? history is a repetative cycle we either learn from or fail to do so. no sympathy here.

i can't remember the latin phrase for anything in excess is idiotic.

A simple, but expensive fix. in selected areas....

[Anonymous Coward]

If one were to put into schools, either a cellphone jammer. (only powerful enough to cover just the school buildings, or to shield the entire school from any RF signal.

You'll find that bill will come down dramatically.

School kids, for whatever reason, txt/sms eachother in the same room, and even when there sitting beside eachother.

odd, when i was in school, it was just writing notes and throwing them at people.

What drives me nuts.

[ukemike]

My cell phone has a button right in the middle of the the various menu buttons. If I push it it starts connecting my to the "Tzones" and charges me $0.35. I call it the 35 cent button. I can't disable it. I can't reprogram that button. I only screw up once every other month but if every Tmobile customer screws up 1time/60days and gets a $0.35 charge that will sure add up for Tmobile. Personally I think that it is wire fraud.

You ought to be able to program time limits for various services into a phone. When you're 13 you get 5 sms per day. You get more each year if your grades are good and you are responsible. If you're like me set it to 0 and you cannot accidentally use the stupid service.


On a different but related topic, it continues to dumbfound me that cell phones are allowed in the k-12 classroom at all!!! How can any teacher compete with that kind of constant distraction?

Re:What drives me nuts.

[WilliamSChips]

At my school(in Wake County, North Carolina, and I'm pretty sure every school in the county has this rule, probably even the whole state), cell phones are supposed to be off during the school day and every teacher that I have had will force you to turn off your cellphone if ey catches you with it(ringing, vibrating, or text messaging)--some of the teachers at my school will even destroy the phones though that's an extreme response.

Verizon not usually the heavy

[rssrss]

In my experience if you sign up for a plan with more messages/minutes Verizon will usually apply it retroactively to the previous month.

The real question here is: did that child do anything but text? Where were her parents? the school?

Dumbasses

[Talgrath]

Texting is the dumbest form of communication I have ever seen in my life. You have a phone precisely so you don't have to type to people, you can CALL THEM! Spending half a minute to type out one word when you could call said individual and talk to them directly is stupid. And what parent gives their kid a phone with no boundaries? I know I'd sure as hell tell my kid that if he/she ran up the phone bill, he/she would pay for the extra charges and they sure as hell wouldn't have a phone to use in the meantime; at the least.

Hey, Mom and Dad

[sizzzzlerz]

Here's a little tip for ya.

You're bigger than little Tiffany and you pay the bills. Take away the privilege of messaging or limit it to a fixed amount per month. I guarantee you won't be surprised again. Now don't make me tell you again.

OMG WTF?

[Frodrick]

How can anyone send 227 text messages per day ?

A few things here.

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

First off, 15c/text is a lot, my plan is 10c/text whether I send or receive, not including ads I get every once in awhile. Yes, it's a complete rip off going by the amount of information you're sending, but here's why it's so high: people who text typically don't use minutes and end up getting the lowest plans. Lots of text = no talk. For the *average* user, 10c per text makes up for the customer not getting the next higher plan.

Here's something to bear in mind. My company and just about every other company I know off allows certain text plans. I pay 10c/text, if I write/read 100 text messages, that's $10. For $9.99 I can add unlimited texting to my plan. I only make about 5 or 6 text messages a month, so 50c is fine with me. If I were someone who wrote 100 or more texts per month, the $9.99 option would be worth it. If I were the parents, I would negotiate with the cell company and see if they'll drop the charges and just charge the 'unlimited' rate for that particular month, then change the contract to include the text plan from that point forward, most companies will do that to keep their customers.

As far as "teens" texting all the time, I think parents should buy voice-only phones for any kid under their own plan, if the kid wants a better phone, they pay the bill. At 6000-something messages in a month, I'd be a lot more concerned with my kid's priorities than just the bill. It takes me about 2-5 minutes to send a message to someone, even with t9. I'm sure people who text often enough get used to the keypad, but it's still time consuming to have a conversation on a numeric keypad.

Easy Solution

[ktcifone]

This happened to me I paid for 300 text for each line. The first month they went over they paid me the costs, but the next month the bill was over $500 ( son sent over 3k messages in 2 weeks) Called my carrier and removed all text capabilities from their phones.

Daughter asked me months later if they she could pay for text again, I told her that I pay for a phone so I can call her, If she wants text she needs to get her own.

Easy, I warn every parent to remove text.

Calls are often free, though; it makes no sense

[ToastyKen]

If you have the same carrier, the calls are often completely free and unlimited, and let's not forget about free nights and weekends. Those two things in combination often make cell phone calls the cheapest option by PRICE, even though I'm sure they COST the most. When calls are already free, and you have to pay more for texting, that doesn't exactly encourage texting. In many other countries, monthly plans weren't as popular, so you actually paid less to text, which really made more sense.

What's even more ridiculous is that I often find myself calling a friend with my cell phone at night because it's free instead of using my landline because using my landline for domestic long distance is more expensive.... even though it probably costs less to operate. I CAN get unlimited landline domestic long distance, but, just as with getting unlimited texting, it would be an added cost, when using my cell is good enough.

I'm rambling, but I think my point is that the cell phone industry is a perfect example of where price is not correlated with cost.

Re:Calls are often free, though; it makes no sense

[dkf]

In many other countries, monthly plans weren't as popular, so you actually paid less to text, which really made more sense.

In yet other countries, monthly plans were popular and it is still cheaper to text, despite not having significantly more major providers. Let's face it, the high costs of cellular calls in the US is because your regulatory structure is shit.

Re:Calls are often free, though; it makes no sense

[ToastyKen]

In yet other countries, monthly plans were popular and it is still cheaper to text

But my point was that monthly plans make talking FREE most of the time. How can texting be cheaper than free? The point is that for most people in the US, talking is already included in their plan, and thus the marginal cost of talking is free, whereas texting is not included in their plan, and so it's not free. You can add a texting plan, but that costs more money. And no one has a texting-only plan with no talking plan.

The parents fault

[chrwei]

It's the parents responsibility to explain to the kids how the calling plans work and what the charges are. Would these same parents give their kid a credit card without explaining how that works? With most cell phone plans, you pay for these services on credit, it's the same things as using a credit card.

Switch to T-Mobile

[thegnu]

I've got T-Mobile, and I noticed that I was paying an average of $10/month on text overages, what with automated notifications from OnForce, and text-y friends. I called in, and found out that not only could I get like 300 texts for like $6/month, they recredited the past 3 months' worth of text messaging charges to account for my not noticing that I was being a jackass.

I'm sure you'd have a harder sell at 6000+ text messages, but you'd still be paying a fraction of the bill. I'm not the kind of guy to back up a corporation based on its morals, but T-Mobile dishes out some damn fine service. Contrary to Verizon's great-product-no-service-no-support gameplan.

geek economy

[zogger]

Geeks are early adopters of new and unusual technology, as such, the early providers to the geeks can sometimes get quite rich. For just one example, who bought all the earliest computers and computer games? Who bought digital watches, or "transistor" radios?

Re:geek economy

[Farmer Tim]

For just one example, who bought all the earliest computers and computer games? Who bought digital watches, or "transistor" radios?

Correction: real geeks didn't buy those things.

WTF

[MacGyver2210]

I remember being that age, and I couldn't BEG my parents to get me a cell phone. When I turned 16 and started driving they got me a real shitty phone for 'emergencies' for the car, but it had a whopping 100 mins or something and I wasn't supposed to use it for talking with friends or anything. Then, when I turned 18 they cut that line off quick as shit and gave me a business card for the person they get their cell service through, so I could go get my own.

Needless to say, it's easier to take something away from your terror of a child if they never had it to begin with. It's the parents' fault for giving her the phone in the first place.

Remedial Capitalist Economics 101

[xdroop]

I dont see how they can justify charging that much for a tiny exchange of data.

Because people can, and do, pay them. The carriers are charging what the market will bear. If you cannot afford the service, or object to the pricing thereof, you are quite welcome to not use the service.

Unlimited plan $10/month

[mlorentz]

I pay Sprint $10/month for unlimited text messages. Problem solved.

Re:Unlimited plan $10/month

[Jerry Rivers]

You pay them $120 a year to send as many text messages as you want. Brilliant. What was the famous expression popularly attributed to P.T. Barnum?

Re:Unlimited plan $10/month

[mlorentz]

Well, seeing as I easily use 1000+ text messages a month, I'm not a sucker. That would be $150+ a month if I paid the outrageous 15 cents per text fee.

There's always an alternative

[MacGyver2210]

Just send the message from the free website that most companies provide to send SMS from the internet. I do that to my friends all the time at work because I'm online anyway. Suppose that doesn't work if you have to do it on the road, but get a Treo like I have and bookmark the SMS pages, and you've got free outbound TXT messages. I have free incoming text and voice with my plan, so it's completely free for me, though I generally use less than 100 mins of talk time and less than 100 messages a month, so no big deal. Verizon: https://www.vtext.com/customer_site/jsp/messaging_ lo.jsp US Cellular: http://usc.ztango.com/uscwmss Cingular: No page, but email goes through to number@mobile.mycingular.com I found this nifty page ( http://www.livejournal.com/tools/textmessage.bml?m ode=details ) with a whole lot of others as well.

Re:There's always an alternative

[charlieman]

or just use Gizmo sms

Well to this century America

[Snaller]

How is the SMS lifestyle grabbing you so far? ;)

Not the culture for me.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Yeah, that's it. Nothing to do with the culture.

Not much, for me. I hate talking on the phone but I'll do it rather than run up my text bill. For me it's all about the prices set by the carriers. The thing is, they're paying for me to make a longer, higher-bandwidth, free (in-network) call rather than just let me send textes to the same individual. I guess the math works out for other callers...

Stupid...

[morari]

Text messaging is by far one of the dumbest fads I've seen. As if mobile telephones weren't annoying enough, they have to go and help ruin the English language while they're at it. It's a telephone, use it to speak and hear. If you want to send five letter pseudo abbreviations back and forth, get on AOL Instant Messenger where you belong. Furthermore, for the parents... Boo-hoo! Teens don't need cell phones anyway.

Re:Stupid...

[ryanov]

I have a theory on this one, using SMS quite a bit myself: I can't freaking hear people on the cell phone. They are so shitty at actually making calls, especially if there's anything like wind going on around you, or you're on a train, that it just makes more sense for me to send 10 SMS that the person will definitely receive and understand rather than try to go "hello, hello, what?" for the same amount of time, annoying the shit out of everyone around me in the process.

phone bill

[franksands]

Instead of a OMG bill, could I have a poneys bill? or even a OMG Ponies!!1!one bill?

2 words

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop reproducing

Phone companies are hurting themselves

[Gregory Cox]

I agree it's unfair. In the end, though, phone companies doing this hurt themselves more than they hurt their customers.

Look at this story. Verizon got a one-off payment of $1100 from one customer, and maybe similar payments for a few more. However, by charging this money, they have alienated these customers, and worse, generated extremely negative publicity for themselves.

Even on technology-loving Slashdot, there have been many responses like these:

• Kids shouldn't be sending so many text messages
• I blame the parents for not controlling kids' use of their phones
• I don't like text messages anyway

The whole story is in effect a big advertisement for cutting down on your use of text messages.

Verizon and other phone companies should switch customers who overspend like this to an unlimited price plan, retrospectively for that month - so that the customer never pays that high bill. They would lose money on this deal, but in return they would gain the gratitude of their customers, who are more likely to stay with them, bringing in a steady flow of income from their unlimited-messaging plans every month.

What's more, these customers on unlimited plans are going to send more messages, encouraging those around them to reply, and increasing the overall use of text messaging. Even if their friends or family are using different providers, the increased volume of text messages will increase dependence on mobile phones, creating a culture in which mobile phone use is accepted, and benefiting the industry as a whole.

Even criminals extorting money via kidnapping or blackmail are careful to consider what their victim is able and willing to pay when deciding on their charges. Being careful not to surprise customers with expensive charges is simply good business.

Re:Phone companies are hurting themselves

[denebian devil]

Verizon and other phone companies should switch customers who overspend like this to an unlimited price plan, retrospectively for that month - so that the customer never pays that high bill. They would lose money on this deal, but in return they would gain the gratitude of their customers, who are more likely to stay with them, bringing in a steady flow of income from their unlimited-messaging plans every month.

Sometimes they do. Usually you just have to ask, and as a last resort, threaten to switch cell phone companies due to your "dissatisfaction with their customer service."

Pay to receive?

[xenn]

I'm just wondering, since you have to pay to receive, is there an option to NOT receive any given SMS?

...you know, it's easier to not take a phone call, especially with phone number ID, but over here in Australia and New Zealand, we have no way to stop a TXT message from actually getting to our phones (without turning them off).

What if someone with an unlimited SMS plan spams a person with a rental plan? Is it easy to stop receiving the SMS's?

the reason the charge out the eats for sms is.....

[mike3]

so you will pay them 20 dollars for the unlimited plan its an effective scare tactic to get any half smart person to pay for the all you can eat and if you SMS a lot then it works great but if you SMS people who don't have an unlimited plan then your raking up there bill and the will probably also be charged out the ears and they will also get the unlimited plan and then they SMS everybody they know and so and so on. yes its a scheme to make you pay more each month companies love to know how there going to be paid for a service each month I mean I know I like my pay check month! I think most cell companies will let you turn OFF SMS so they can't be sent or received so you can't get those unexpected bills well at least not from SMS. thats why all these charges for going over your minutes are so steep and also why they make no effort to warn you when your close to maxing out your minutes because then they can so oh for 10 more bucks a month you can get X more minutes and they keep milking more money out of you!

I have three problems with this.

[AbRASiON]

Firstly, the kid should be controlled, do children need a damned mobile phone? Maybe I'm old fasioned but we didn't have them 15 years ago when I was a kid.
Why not use a prepaid, why not use an account with cheaper SMS?

The second problem I have with this is the goddamn phone companies charging so much for text!
In some markets where the consumers aren't idiots, the rate for a text is 1c or even less - in Australia it's a nice butt rapingly harsh 22 or 25c on average :/

The third problem I have is with companies that let exaggerated bills generate in the first place, I realise it's not their responsibility to an extent but every few years you hear of little Jonny dialing a 1800 number to speak to hot wet sluts for 300 hours in a month and his family end up owing 25grand or something - credit card companies put a freeze on excessive bills, where's this freeze for mobile plans?

But really,.... get a damn plan with unlimited SMS or something.

Require the phone to use spellcheck?

[Aristos Mazer]

> I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use
> SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to
> spell words like "you", "your/you're", and will use internet
> abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers.

That suggests an interesting punishment... install a spellcheck on the cell phone and only allow text messages that conform to standard rules of spelling and grammer. For one thing, it'll cut down on the number of messages since they have to type more ("laughing out loud" takes longer than "lol"). For another, the kid will actually get some experience with the language they'll need in other venues.

Of course, I suggest this only after a complete ban on all text messages until the kid pays the bill him/herself.

I understand the feeling

[mschuyler]

which is why I'm holding my daughter's $2000 piano as hostage until she pays up. Hope it was worth it.

Greed

[Datamonstar]

I've wondered a lot of things about texting. Why is it so popular? How do people seem to like it so much when I find it tedious and time consuming, especially when on the go? Why does it cost so much to do on a phone what I can do virtually for free on a computer? The entire mobile communication payment system needs to be changed quickly. It's currently mirroring the dark ages of internet access, when it was mysterious, addictive, and absorbently expensive. When precious online minutes were rationed out for a specified monthly fee. We've reached a new era in internet services, of unlimited fast internet that is mostly fair, free, and open. I can take my laptop outside find a free access point and chat all I want. I can even call people on their I don't know much about cellular communications, but it's so disturbing to me that these devices that are becoming increasingly similar to computers cannot benefit from some of the same advances in pricing. One day I hope that some loophole allows a clever start-up to offer a cellular service that is as free as the internet is. But I doubt that will happen because of the miles of greed-inspired red tape involved with it.

Re:Greed

[mark99]

Its popular for a lot of reasons:

1) It is non-intrusive, and is delivered when the phone becomes available. I use it all the time when I am traveling, or trying to reach someone else who is traveling. Phoning requires both parties to be available simultaniously. E-mail requires them to login and connect.

2) It is easy to build a complicated culture around abreviations, symbols, etc. This makes it interesting.

3) A lot of adults "don't get it" (like my wife, and apparently you). This automatically makes it cool.

Interestingly my kids don't send me text messages, they just send to their friends. I guess I am not cool even though I do use text messages :)

Welcome to the late 1990's america

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, nothing new here. Kids love SMS. End of story. Europe and Australia/NZ have been going nuts with it for, um, 10 years or so. I use around 150/month (90% to the wife), and maybe use 10% of my included minutes. And I'm 30-odd....

Apple looks like they "get it" with the iphone, so maybe there is hope for the US :)

Telecom NZ ran an "unlimited" plan for $10 NZ/month. Someone sent something like 25,000 messages in a month (seriously). They stopped that quickly, and made it 500 for $10/month, and 2c over that ($1 NZ = 75c US). I know people with a phone on each network (we have 2 in NZ), so they can get more "free" texts, as texts within the same network are usually free.....

Simple Solution

[rossz]

The first time my stepdaughter went over her allocated number of messages in a month I gave her a warning that she would lose that privilege if she did it again. The next month she went over the limit by a massive amount. I immediately had her text messaging option canceled. Problem solved.

Re:Simple Solution

[tomstdenis]

Congrats. You're a parent.

Seriously, the number of "guardians" who forget that they set the rules, not the kid, is amazing.

I'm sure your stepdaughter is doing just fine with the punishment, and it's neither cruel nor unusual [well by the definition of law I guess].

Kudos for doing what's right.

Tom

Nice

[suv4x4]

Last month, Washington high school junior Sofia Rubenstein used 6,807 text messages, which, at a rate of 15 cents apiece for most of them, pushed her family's Verizon Wireless bill over $1,100. She and other teens are finding themselves in hot water after their families get blindsided with huge phone bills thanks to hefty a la carte text messaging charges.

We take you to the American family of Martha and John, and their beautiful daughter Sofia, conversing on family matter:

John: The bills are in. We have $1,100 wireless bill on Sophia's phone.
Martha: That's most ungood, John, most ungood. Why would this be?
John: It might very well be from the 6,807 SMS messages she sent through her phone, Martha.
Martha: What could we possibly do, John? Sue Verizon for the unreasonable price?
John: I'm afraid it's an open market, Martha.
Martha: Petition to our government for cheaper SMS?
John: Nope. Stop trying Martha. I know you'll proceed with increasingly weird suggestions, in an overly sarcastic tone. But I think we'll simply need to teach our kid to learn the consequences of their actions.
Martha: Oh my.

1 TXT every 6 MIN?!

[Anonymous Coward]

6807 texts in a 30-day month works out to 1 text message every 6.35 minutes. If we assume that this high school junior has to sleep at least 6 hours a day and has to pay attention in class at least 4 hours a day, we're up to 1 text message every 3.70 minutes for the remaining 14 hours.

How in the WORLD could her parents not expect such a huge bill when it's clear the girl wasn't doing ANYTHING except texting all day long.

Re:1 TXT every 6 MIN?!

[Scorchio]

Don't overestimate how long it takes to compose and send a text message, especially in the hands of a pro, i.e., a teenage girl.

Waiting to get off a plane yesterday, I noticed the girl in the row in front flip open her razr phone, flash past a couple of menus, enter "LOL I know", and hit send within about 4 seconds. One text message every 3.7 minutes for 14 hours seems relatively pedestrian.

Alas, I don't have a ninja thumb, and composing a text message takes me an age. Something to do with hunting through sub-menus for the apostrophe in "you're", rather than sticking with "ur", I imagine.

Re:Jew

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. Oddly hypocritical that many people (parent poster included) think that its OK for that to happen, but the killing of 6 million jews (which didn't happen) was not OK.

The Jew is a magical protected class.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Off topic

[aepervius]

No, it only proves that my own language is not english, and that I am too lazy to google for the correct expression. Thanks for playing, you can try again.

Re:Off topic

[Anonymous Coward]

As a service to the many people who get it wrong - the vast majority of which are English speakers - here's the correct phrase: The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.

I'm not picking on you, incidentally. I've seen it quoted the way you did more frequently than not - it's one of those "evolving language" things, I guess.

Cricket or any other that offers unlimited phone

[WindBourne]

Cricket is a great one for the kids. The things that can get a child in trouble comes from the pre-paid money. If it does not have great reception in the school, well, that it the child's issues.

Unlimited Text Messages

[xanadistic]

Cingular offers a plan where you get unlimited text messages. I think it costs $20 to $30 more per month on your phone bill. Parents could simply pay this for their texting teens so they will never have to worry about how often their kids are texting others. I had this plan, but then I realized that I was sending less than 200 text messages a month so I downgraded to the next plan, which gave me 200 free text messages a month. Of course, the parents would still have to worry about how many minutes their kids use per month, but texting seems to be more popular than talking. I know I like texting more. Talking to someone on a cell phone always hurts my ears after a while, and the connection is still not as good as a landline. I still have a cell phone, though, and I hate it; but it comes in handy at times. Mark

Denial

[Gorimek]

Your conversation can be logically reduced to this

But what if X is true

Stop seeing X as true!

Denying the existence of a problem is one of the most common ways to deal with problems. It does not have good track record, but people usually deny that as well, building a solid fortress of logic against reality.

Re:Denial

[Anonymous Coward]

But what if X is true.

Sounds like petitio principii, in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises

Assuming a problem exists is far more stupid than considering that you might be using the wrong label. Take a child with tourette's syndrome mix in some parents who believe is SATAN and see what happens.

Re:Denial

[McDutchie]

Your conversation can be logically reduced to this

But what if X is true

Stop seeing X as true!

Denying the existence of a problem is one of the most common ways to deal with problems.

Indeed, and saying "child X is just plain evil" is one of the most common ways in which such denial manifests itself. It neatly absolves both parent and child of responsibility for their actions or lack thereof. Looking for specific solutions to specific problems, OTOH, is the opposite of denial.

Boo Hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how much the phone company charges. If the families let their kids get away with it, boo hoo.

Maybe a little exaggerated?

[Anrego]

In Sofia's case, her parents' plan included only 100 free text messages a month -- fewer than half of what she was using every day "at all points of the day" Thats 200 a day? So we're talking a text message every ~8 minutes.. IF SHE DIDN'T SLEEP!

Twilight Zone

[taxman_10m]

Twilight Zone does a good job of beating out most modern TV.

They Need an Automatic Cut-off

[Francis]

A little while ago, I saw this story about Cingular trying to collect a $31,000 bill from some guy that was clearly the victim of network error. Things like 4 roaming calls/minute from Nicaragua. I got worried enough this might happen to me, so I went to my cellphone provider to ask to put a cap on my account. Something like, "If my bill ever reaches $300 just turn off my phone."

They can't. As far as I can figure, the only reason for this policy is to try and screw people who didn't intend to spend so much money, or were mistakenly billed.

Incidentally, while I'm here, I might as well mention I'm on Cingular/AT&T. ("Fewest dropped calls!") My experience with this network has been absolute garbage, with frequent dropped calls regardless of how many bars I have. As far as I can tell, they can make this claim because they don't have a way of differentiating regular hang-ups from a dropped call. (I asked a Cingular tech how I could tell which side of the conversation was dropping, and he said there's no way for me to differentiate me dropping the call, the other side dropping the call, and someone just hanging up.)

Oh well. Only 19 months left on my contract...

Re:They Need an Automatic Cut-off

[Lord Kano]

They can't. As far as I can figure, the only reason for this policy is to try and screw people who didn't intend to spend so much money, or were mistakenly billed.

It's just like how a credit card company can decline any charges if you exceed your limit, even if by one dollar but your bank will allow you to overdraw your debit card so that they can smack you with the overdraft fees.

LK

Text Messaging is a ripoff compared to IM

[TheNarrator]

I have a sidekick phone and can do AOL, MSN or Yahoo IM all day and I pay a flat rate per month. You can even get a cheap used Sidekick I or II and still do AOL and/or Yahoo. Pay per message text messaging seems like something from the 1980s.

Re:Text Messaging is a ripoff compared to IM

[RockDoctor]

Pay per message text messaging seems like something from the 1980s.

Now, why do I get the feeling that you weren't paying phone bills back in the 1980s? (Actually, after 1987 and until 1993, I wasn't either - my flat mates and I decided at various times that getting a phone into the flat was a waste of time and money.)
While some of the planning and groundwork for GSM was being laid in the 1980s, mobile phones were

1. the size and weight of bricks. Large bricks.
2. Analogue-only;
3. Extremely expensive.

On the other hand, the first mobile phones I dealt with in 1989/ 1990 were capable of getting a fax and data connection to shore from 80 miles out at sea. (Given that there was a 300ft tall mast in the middle of your boat, and an electronics technician and a crane operator to run the co-ax up to the antenna on the crown block assembly). One of the phones was damaged in shipping the communications system - the repair bill was in the order of £1200, and took about a month ; replacement was not an option because there weren't replacements available.
When did SMS messaging become available? I think it was just rolling out (as a side-effect of GSM mobiles), in 1995~1996. I got a mobile in late 1996 IIRC, when it was the best part of a week's wages and that's when I discovered how tremendously effective text messaging is. Of course, that phase only lasted about a month. Until the first bill came in, to be precise. SMS messages then were about £0.25 each - about $0.5 US? - which was a great encouragement to decide what was the most effective way to communicate the information you wanted to send - mobile voice, mobile text or payphone?
It's education.
Seeing that the offending person with the $1000+ phone bill was an adolescent child, then a pre-paid phone is definitely the appropriate answer. My daughter has exactly that, and manages her life and her phone perfectly well with having to choose how much of her allowance to spend on telephony and how much to spend on clothes. She also choose to spend this year's birthday money on a new phone. All in all, an effective educational experience.

Run those numbers

[keithjr]

I just thought I'd take a number-crunching approach to this hilarity...

6807 messages in 1 month (let's say 30 days)

That turns out to be over 9 text messages per hour, assuming she does not sleep and can text-message when/if she is in school. Unfortunately I lack any information to make reasonable assumptions about either of those two habits. And to keep that up constantly for an entire month? I feel like somebody should have taken notice.

What I really wonder if this one bill just came out of the blue or if it was a slow buildup to an $11,000 phone bill and parents who didn't care less. Judging by the smile on her face in the linked article, I'm willing to sway towards the latter. This only made the news because of its extreme magnitude, not because the parents blew their lids.

Just another spoiled brat. Move along.

Re:Run those numbers

[OneSmartFellow]

If you assume six hours of sleep per day, it works out at a rate in excess of one text every 5 minutes. What kind of looser has so little going on in their life that this is possible.

Belgium telecom is similar in business tactics...

[freaker_TuC]

I used to have a Proximus subscription. In July about 12 years ago I received a bill of more than 65,000Bef; which is the equivalent of 1611 Euro (about $1300 dollar). I needed to cancel my other subscriptions and breach multiple contracts before I could pay this bill; because it was the fee of two months work; this while I was student.

They managed to send me a collector; who wanted the money immediately or get everything sold to pay up their bill. I paid the ransom fee; because else I'd loose all my stuff; while I was student in the middle of exams. Needless to say I failed my exams, failed the stress and stopped studieing at the university because it was *TOO MUCH* for me.

About a month later I received a call from Proximus it was an error at THEIR side; the bill was not mine and my bill was only 4,000Bef; which is the equivalent of 100 Euro (about $80 dollar). Big deal; they paid me back in TWO TIMES taking over a year before I had that money back.

I had to pay the collector and all costs myself; or sue them for court- which could have costed me more than just leaving it like this. It took me over a year and a half to recover from this financial pit, still leaving me with quite some financial troubles and problems with the suppliers (electricity, gas, landlord, cabletv, ...) where I broke contract with; since I couldn't pay them all at a time they also sent THEIR collectors...

This because of a stupid phonebill which wasn't mine; a stupid computer error; made worse by humans!
If someone would drop a bomb on their headquarters (preferably at night ;)) I wouldn't care less; such tactics ruin lives of others like it has partially ruined mine years ago and are outlawed since a few years ago ..

226 messages per day, every day for a month?

[Anonymous Coward]

226 messages per day, every day for a month?

I don't think so. people who believe that are as stupid as the writers of this article.

uhm, isn't that a little bit too simple ??

[freaker_TuC]

Go imagine the following (happened) situations:

1. My business partner is getting goods but needs the telephone number and contact person of that company while he is already driving to that location. Do I call him while he is driving or send all info by text? (way safer/cheaper and easier to note down by text!)
   
2. I am in a meeting while a delivery is scheduled later because more information is needed; I get a text to contact Mr. Person at +tel.eph.one asap about the delivery; my meeting has not been interrupted and I have been notified without being forgotten because I was unreachable at that time.
   
3. My mom is on the way but misses the train and got on the next one... needless to say; try to call on a moving high-speed train and we both do not like to disturb people sitting next to us on the train; text is sure easier and faster and in some cases less costly. (think about: CAN YOU HEAR MEEEEEEEEEE?)
   

Still; texts are being charged at suicidal rates at 20-40 eurocent / SMS which is pure exploitation. Sometimes I think if it would be cheaper/faster to call or to send a text to my recipient; but cost is not the only decision maker in this case...

I agree but disagree ..

[freaker_TuC]

Technology does not stand still, do you like modern science curing your disease which couldn't be cured 10 years ago?

Cellphones are getting cheaper than their subscriptions; because every operator knows the subscription will outfactor the cost of the phone.
You can't ask/force everyone to stop following with the current technology and trends.

Still, as a parent you should be able to say "STOP THIS MADNESS" and disconnect from the network till the youngster finds out the responsibilities of using such expensive equipment. Too bad them operators do not offer plans with limited communications; like they have smallband on the Internet.

so what gives them right to be judge, jury and ...

[freaker_TuC]

What gives them more right to be judge, jury and executioner about ones materials?
Is that the way to teach children to demolish other property when it doesn't fit your own rules?

That is SURE respect to you;
instead of asking to turn them off in the beginning of the class or just confiscating them (till the end of the week).

Killer Mom ?

[freaker_TuC]

(I'm sure if she said "kill a man," I might have had some objections, but thankfully, such requests were rare). Mommy, can I go out and kill tonight ... I feel, I feel like taking a life ...

Re:Killer Mom ?

[Ours]

Go watch "Dexter" for that sort of father-son relationship: http://imdb.com/title/tt0773262/

Ritalin (Relatine) kills creativity !

[freaker_TuC]

I've got ADHD, genetically from my mom in worst degree. Currently I am not taking any meds for this and keep myself "grounded". I've tried Relatine (the European variant of Ritalin) and was unable to draw, design, write and think clearly for the period + months after I took Relatine.

Where I once managed to think in "tree structures" where multiple solutions are being thought about; I had only -one- way of thinking when taking this drug. That way always looked easiest and best. It has sure taken away a year of my creative life even when not taking it that long; it sure destroys SOMETHING inside (even if temporary). I tried 3 medications now and found out the natural way is best; no meds and self-control.

Re:Ritalin (Relatine) kills creativity !

[jae471]

Where I once managed to think in "tree structures" where multiple solutions are being thought about; I had only -one- way of thinking when taking this drug.

That's interesting to hear from someone who's been on and off the drug.

I noticed similar behavior back working at a day camp in HS. We'd get the same kids year after year, until the aged-out at 12. Sometimes you'd have a very bright kid who was hyper and hard to control, but you could give them a difficult task or puzzle, and they could focus for hours (chess, checkers, and connect-four against the adults, for example. The kids I'm talking about would crush any of the other kids in no time.) Unfortunately, too often we saw the brightest kids back next summer, drugged up and seemingly dim.

Granted, not a scientific study, just an observation.

Re:Ritalin (Relatine) kills creativity !

[somersault]

As someone who's taken meds for depression I'd agree that I did actually feel kind of 'blunt' mentally while taking them. I was still able to work properly, and probably actually more effectively than when I was just depressed, but I couldn't help feeling kind of stupid. Maybe that was just because I knew I was having to take drugs to make myself 'normal' rather than because it was actually making me stupid. I went off them for a year but now am back on them again (only a mild dose but the doctor was talking about increasing them). It's back to feeling sick in the mornings, and if the dosage is increased it's probably back to feeling dumb! The sad thing is that I decided to go back on them because I knew my depression was hurting my relationship with my girlfriend, then we split up 2 weeks after I started on the meds, so I now regret coming them in the first place! I'm just going to have to stick with it for others benefits (sure I may be smarter without them, but as a side effect of that, I also overthink things and end up paranoid that some unlikely explanation for someone's actions could be true, etc). Since starting back on a mild dosage of meds my attitude and outlook has generally improved, but that could also be because I've split up with my girlfriend and so no longer have the stress from arguing all the time (I broke out in rashes because of it, they're almost gone now though..).

this is how we spell itin europe:

[andr0meda]

n0 phn

Welcome to 1997 and 1987 resp.

[Anonymous Coward]

First en foremost, did you just get cellphones in the US? Lol - This was a problem 1997 when everyone had a cellphone to begin with and SMS was getting big here in Sweden.

Anyway, how can you people be so hard on her? Didn't your parents get pissed on your phonebills back in the day of the modems?

Unlimited messaging?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell?

I pay $10 a month for unlimited text messaging. Something tells me this family should have gotten something similar with their phones.

That's not normal

[DrHyde]

That's 14 text messages for every waking hour of the month. One every four minutes. Wow. Given how long it takes to actually compose a message, I have to wonder how on earth she managed that. Also, I bet she now has no friends. How would *you* like to receive pointless messages every few minutes?

Old news.....

[advocate_one]

my daughter ran up a £250 pound bill one month ringing and texting her friends... the phone was removed from her and she was given a pay as you go one instead... with a strict £10 a month limit... If she ran out in any month, she had to either wait for the next month, or put credit on her phone herself out of her own money... this happened back in 1999... talk about old news...

and the punishment for the child?...

[backbyter]

She has to work the off the bill in her parents retail business...

after she gets back from her 10 day trip to Morocco...

And yes, the parents have bought into the unlimited texting plan also.

Funny...

[Jinjuku]

"She and other teens are finding themselves in hot water after their families get blindsided with huge phone bills thanks to hefty a la carte text messaging charges." And here I thought it was because a teenager figuratively living on the cell phone... Yep, typical American attitude "It's not my fault, let's blame someone else". Jeez, what's next: I got sunburn, it's the atmospheres fault for letting all the uva and uvb through... God help America.

This reminds me of a time...

[musicscene]

... maybe 25+ years ago when *my* parents were freaking out about a large long distance (domestic & international) phone bill. Only took me once to get in hot doodoo to figure out how not to let them (or me) pay for calling BBSs.

the rifleman?

[Anonymous Coward]

i remember watching a rerun of this western in college, & thinking the script came directly out of a psychology course textbook;-)

one word

[Sattwic]

blackberry

It's a result of child-driven censorship.

[FatSean]

First we had to protect the precious children from boobs and pussies, and now we protect them from everything except violence.

I support these laws, it's sweet sweet revenge on the greedy, selfish and ignorant parents who TRIED to make society responsible for raising their children.

Maybe I'll go to 'family court' and point and laugh at all the parents losing custody of their children. Ha-ha! You wanted special privledges for shitting out babies? You got them and you've sown the wind...

Did the Bill/month go from $0 to $1100 in a month?

[PastTense]

I just can't believe the monthly bill went from almost nothing to $1100 in a month. I would have expected there to have been significant bills in previous months--which the parents could have dealt with then by changing plans.

Doing the math

[coyote_oww]

Assuming a constant rate of texting, and that she's up 16 hours a day, this comes to a text message every 4.2 waking minutes. Apparently this girl does nothing else. My suggestion: get her a hobby, ANY hobby, anything to get her away from the phone for another 4 minutes... geez, she'd gotta be failing, there's no time for homework in there. Or exercise. Or heck, ANYTHING.

Re:Doing the math

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy double post, Batman! (even more impressively, it appears that you actually typed it twice, since the content is slightly different -- good job!)

Re:Doing the math

[coyote_oww]

hehe, i was at work, someone interupted me right as i hit send. I turned around and talked for a minute.... when I turned back, /. was complaining about something or other and saying "bad submission" - so I redid it. My bad!

Re:Doing the math

[Achromatic1978]

Actually, if the photo on the article is in fact her, she's kinda cute. Apart from the personality that keeps her hands and attention GLUED to that fucking phone...

Doing the math

[coyote_oww]

Assuming a 16 hour waking day, this girl is texting every 4.2 minutes, 7 days a week. No time for homework, or exercise, or driving around, or work, that's for sure. You gotta wonder - is she obese, from no exercise, or anorexic, from no time to eat? Or can you eat and text at the same time?? Maybe she's just ambidexterous.

Extreme Measures

[Khammurabi]

Society has no answers for the children who are not perfect little angels. As a parent, you're screwed either way.

You could always try to put them up for adoption.

Emergencies

[pedestrian crossing]

So when your house is on fire, or your wife collapses and needs an ambulance, you are going to IM the Fire Department?

Better off just turning off the ringer and checking the answering machine when it's convenient for you....

Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater!

YOU'RE AN IDIOT

[evansvillelinux]

As soon as you resort to smacking, spanking, or hitting in any way, you've signaled your failure as a parent. I have a 15 year old and a 10 year old. They're good kids, but the few times they've done something wrong, they've been more hurt by my disappointment than any physical pain I could inflict. However, it doesn't work unless you've been consistent since day one. You are an idiot. If your kids respond to your disappointment, then you got lucky. Not all kids respond the same way.

Raising kids can be easy, but I think a majority of parents fail because they cannot evolve beyond what their parents did to them. Bullshit. Raising kids can be, but isn't always easy. And my kid doesn't get treated anywhere close to how I was treated when I was a kid. He's a good kid but sometimes even good kids need a swat on the butt. Did I mention that you're an idiot?

Re:YOU'RE AN IDIOT

[hb253]

Your thoughtful and well worded insult was a shining example of how people should talk to each other. It must have taken you hours upon hours to come up with it. BRAVO!

Re:YOU'RE AN IDIOT

[evansvillelinux]

Your thoughtful and well worded insult was a shining example of how people should talk to each other. It must have taken you hours upon hours to come up with it. BRAVO! Nope. It took all of about thirty seconds. My child doesn't hate me or think that I've failed him as a parent (we do lots of father/son stuff together like fishing, riding bikes together, etc. and he's not afraid to voice his opinion, even it it is different from mine) because I've spanked him a couple times in his 11 years on this planet. If you think for one minute that I've failed as a parent, then you really are an idiot.

Terrible Twos

[evansvillelinux]

If you decide to have children, there is a period of time of 18 months that really tests your patience. It is known as the terrible twos. 18 months? I think it's more like 18 years. :)

Doesn't explain the unusual part

[Gorimek]

That's true on one level. But the interesting part is how this market is different from normal markets, where companies can't just keep raising prices, but are instead forced by vicious competition to go the other direction.

I'm sure there is a rational explanation for that, but I seriously doubt it's ECO 101 stuff.

note 2 self...

[maxconfus]

omg, thz kidz r spendin a metric ton moneyz on sms... :-) howz 2 capitalize???

re: misunderstood parenting

[King_TJ]

As a parent myself, I'm not really sure I agree with your conclusion.

Before I had a kid, I *used* to think most "bad behavior" was directly the result of "poor parenting". (Hey, it's easy to point fingers and blame the adult, since we all know kids just learn from what they see around them, right?)

But now that I'm in the middle of the situation myself, and most of my friends are now parents too, I'm seeing it's much more complicated.

For one thing, I see MUCH more pressure for kids to "grow up" and act like "little adults" than there used to be. (Heck, my kid's preschool already sent home a notice a couple weeks ago that they intended to let the kids watch a PG rated movie, because they already read the book it was based on and thought the kids would enjoy it.) I'm not necessarily opposed to that either, but I note the sharp contrast to my own upbringing in the 70's - where my parents tried to make sure ANY movie I watched was G rated until I was at least 8 or 9.

Before we moved, my kid's first preschool experience was a public school offering an "early childhood center". That school was sending 4 year olds down to the principals' office as punishment for hitting another kid with a toy or what-have-you! No differentiation between punishments/consequences for behavior of a preschooler or an 8th. grader!

I tend to try to parent in a "laid back/relaxed" manner. That's just my personality, plus the way my own father generally did things (and I grew up admiring that quality in him). Unfortunately, my kid is pretty wild and active, and has been officially diagnosed as being ADHD (seemingly like every other kid these days!). I'm constantly hinted to that I should be "more firmly setting boundaries" and so forth. But I've watched her school try all sorts of things for month after month in an attempt to "modify her behavior", and generally fail miserably at it. They're the ones "strongly recommending" I look into medication for her as a "supplement" to the behavior modification work at this point....

She's been on Adderall XR for several weeks now, and I've seen absolutely no improvement in her behavior. Before that, we tried Tenex for about a month. It initially seemed promising (though she complained a bit of being tired during the middle of the day), but its positive effects seemed to vanish completely after about 2 weeks.

But to look at your statements, my kid is a complete contradiction. She's acting more like what you say results from your "scenario 2", despite claims that I parent closer to your "scenario 1".

I think reality probably is, she's going to just have to "work through" a lot of this on her own. She knows what she's "supposed" to do in most situations, but she's stubborn, and wants badly to take more "control" of her own world. So she willingly breaks some of the "rules and boundaries" that are set for her, no matter how severe the consequences are - because it's simply worth it to her right now. (For example, you can tell you not to stand on the chair because she could easily fall and get hurt. Well, she'll fall and get hurt, cry a while - and 2 hours later, she's back up on that same chair, telling you "It's ok! I won't get hurt THIS time!" She might even fall a second and a third time, but she's back up on that chair - just to prove to herself she can do it without getting hurt at least SOME of the time.")

And You Expect Me To Be .. Sympathetic?

[Toad-san]

Doh.

"Honey, everything costs money. EVERYTHING. You better learn the price before you do it."

Gods, don't you just love Darwin?

Holy not-getting-the-free-market, Batman!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting that any kind of RF service is an oligopoly, because only one company can get a license to a particular band in a particular area, and there are only a few cdma/gsm/wcdma-licensed bands.

Uh, no. It's the same with anything else: if I have a piece of land, for example, only one person can hold the title to it. Only one person can own my car, and since I really like it, you'd have to pay me a lot if you want it.

Prices in the U.S. are what they are because all the cell providers have the same general philosophy -- gouge the customer.

Sure, where "gouge" means "charge the highest price the customer is willing to pay". They probably took ECON 101 in college, where this principle was examined in detail (though not called "gouging").

If one of them broke with that tradition and started charging reasonable prices that reflected actual costs (plus some profit margin), the rest would have to follow suit.

"Actual costs"? Since when has the free market done anything with "actual costs"? And why do you get to decide what "some profit margin" means? We have the free market exactly so we don't have some dork deciding this for us. If A has something they want to sell, and B wants to buy it, and they agree on the price, why does it matter what anybody else thinks?

The subject of this thread is a perfect example of gouging. When a provider can offer an unlimited messaging plan for $15/month, the reasonable, rational thing to do is to cap SMS charges at something more -- but not 50 times more -- than that.

It seems pretty rational to me for a company to want to maximize profits.

That allows the networks to avoid losses if there's a lot of unplanned usage, while not eating up some parent's salary when a wayward kid decides to send/receive a few thousand text messages.

If a "wayward kid decides" to use up a few thousand of anything else, it costs them. You want to help stop kids from learning this valuable lesson, because a telecom corporation is involved?

Charging ridiculous amounts for spurious incidents of individual users using more services than expected is plainly abusive.

Abusive? Charging a customer what they promised to pay is now on par with rape? Who's ignoring reality now?

It ignores the reality of relatively minor impact from the service provider's perspective, while depending on the individual customers' tendency to pay linearly for use of services.

Ha, "tendency". Yes, what a silly company for depending on their customers' "tendency" to pay what they promised to in the contract they signed.

MUST Phone Companies be Assholes?

[sasdrtx]

Charging $0.15 for a message that has an infinitesimal to them is an outrage itself. But they provide no mechanism to stop the bleeding, or specify a limit. The entire pricing structure just screams "let us screw you in the ass". Or maybe "we really want to have every aspect of our business regulated by the government because the only thing we know how to do is screw our customers in the ass".

How about a warning message? How about a hard limit if you want it? How about quick purchase of a 100-pack with your phone? How about automatic upgrades to the next message tier?

I can only assume that phone companies have no marketing people with their heads outside their own ass. Maybe that's why they think people like getting screwed in the ass.

Re:MUST Phone Companies be Assholes?

[Jeld]

I don't know what world you are living in, but here, we have unlimited messages plans.

1100 messages? How cute!

[JonnyO]

Try having a monitoring program run amok, such as when a T1 starts flapping, and blitzkrieg your cell with thousands of messages over the course of a single evening! Unlimited is the only way to fly. (well, that, and fixing your monitoring app.)

Why isn't the kid paying the bill?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the family on the hook for this? They bought a phone for their kid and pay whatever each month so she can babble to her dizzy friends? Why does a minor need to own a cell anyway (I'm not talking about _borrowing_ for a special purpose)?? If my kids want a cell phone, they need to pay for it -- that's it. If they want to get a job and send that money to a carrier every month, then that will be their choice. And, if they don't have the money to pay the bill, they lose it. Why is this so difficult?

wow

[TheGeneration]

That's basically one text message every 6 minutes 24 hour a day, in a 30 day month.

Think of the...

[Anonymous Coward]

numbers. 6087 txt msgs in one month means one every 4-7 minutes (depending on the amount of time spent sleeping), all day, every day.

That seems suspiciously like obsessive/compulsive behavior, to me.

does it really work?

[CaptainNerdCave]

because it didn't work for the bush family

Re:1100 messages? How cute!

[pe1chl]

You must have a very dumb monitoring app when you cannot specify a maximum alert rate!

k0d3z to the rescue

[dave562]

Reading this article reminds me of the first time my parents got a huge phone bill because I was swapping warez. It didn't take too long after that for me to figure out what 950s were. Ahhhhh, the good old days.

Blaming the kid vs. the telcos

[RomulusNR]

Instead of playing armchair parent, hasn't anyone considered that text messaging rates are a fucking joke?

TMO has prepay starting at $10 for 30 minutes ($0.33/min). Virgin Mobile prepay starts at $0.15/min. Meanwhile, nearly all charge anywhere from $0.05 to $0.20 for a 250 byte packet of data that equates to about 10 seconds of traffic compared to the GSM voice rate.

SMS is still a cash cow, that's the only reason it's not priced in line with voice or even high speed wireless data.

Ah - but the NEC P3..

[cheros]

I got the NEC P3 at the time when everyone was still running around with the Motorola brick. It was quite funny to go and have a drink in the evening and watch dorks pulling the brick to show off, and then calmly pull the P3 out of my jacket pocket. Ah, soo subtle..

Even better, the P3 could be fitted with a diagnostics chip. I remember being at what was the last Access All Areas (hacker conf) in London and sitting next to a 12 year old kid who was scanning the vicinity with such a phone. The funny thing was that he appeared to occasionally join the conversations :-).

I had my own amusement. I bought a Samsonite briefcase with a 4 digit digital lock and had a few guys unsuccessfully trying to open it, despite spending the entire conference on it. They didn't stand a chance because of some simple misdirection. That briefcase had a 4 digit lock which had more than 10000 different combinations - it actually had 11106. You see, you didn't HAVE to use all the digits, so they spend two days entering every number from 0000 to 9999 whereas the actual combination was a single "0". I just pretended to press 4 buttons when I opened it :-).

Yes, those days were good fun.. Wasn't that the time the first flip phone was introduced, the Motorola StarTAC or something?

Punishing or beating?

[phorm]

Beating a child is wrong. Beating would generally be instantiated because the parent loses control, and at that point is has gone beyond displine to become a release a frustations upon the child by an adult.

Punishing a child is instantiated because other controls on the child have failed (aka the kid is out of control). While it is hard to keep a clear head with an out-of-control child, you should not use heavy physical punishment until you have yourself under control.

The hardest part might actually be finding the time to control your own inner anger (at the misbehaving child) but still give out punishment in a period when it can be associated with the negative actions of the child.

Ritalin is legal "Speed", a sham, for profit.

[NRAdude]

This isn't meant to be offensive or cause of libel to anyone. I escaped the accusations with daily rebuttals in a zeal greater than the littanies of slander belched at me from the Article-7 "inferior courts". Just try it on for size, as I write, because I hear the stories all day long about who is convinced that they have ADHD or ADD. Propaganda branded and debilitative to one's name is that of an ADD-ict, and propaganda can get rid of the symptoms and the legal burdens of unproven claims. Consider the work of Dennis H. Clark (HOW PSYCHIATRY IS MAKING DRUG ADDICTS OUT OF AMERICA'S SCHOOL CHILDREN) and Tina Blue (Ritalin Abuse. To quote Clark;

HOW THE CHILD IS LABELED

What is "Attention Deficit Disorder"? Who "diagnoses" it? How is it treated? What are the results of that treatment? Who pays the bill? How is it that a "disease" no one even heard of a few years ago has swept through our children in our schools? Is this a more serious epidemic than AIDS? Is it contagious? Can you catch it from your children? Let's see if we can answer these questions from the writings of the "experts" who invented the "disease." The American Psychiatric Association publishes a text called "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." This has been translated into German and forms the accepted guidelines for what are considered to be "mental illnesses," or as they are more modernly referred to, "mental disorders." The text is now in its third edition which was revised in 1987. It is generally referred to by its abbreviated title for its revised edition as DSM-III-R. This reference text is the "bible"of the psychiatric industry. The "diagnostic numbers" for each specific label are accepted internationally and are used by the World Health Organization and the World Federation of Mental Health. One of those numbers is 314.01 which indicates the "Diagnostic Criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" from the DSM-III-R. Millions of America's children have been labeled with this so-called disorder and put on Ritalin. See how for yourself. The following are the "criteria" for this "disease" taken directly without change from the psychiatric text. A. A disturbance of at least six months during which at least eight of the following are present: (1) [the child] often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat. (in adolescents, may be limited to subjective feelings of restlessness) (2) [this child] has difficulty remaining seated when required to do so (3) [the child] is easily distracted (4) [the child] has difficulty awaiting turn in games or group situations (5) [the child] often blurts out answers to questions before they have been completed (6) [the child] has difficulty following through on instructions from others, example, fails to finish chores (7) [the child] has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities (8) [the child] often shifts from one uncompleted activity to another (9) [the child] has difficulty playing quietly (10) [the child] often talks excessively (11) [the child] often interrupts or intrudes on others, example, butts into other children's games (12) [the child] often does not seem to listen to what is being said to him or her (13) [the child] often loses things necessary for tasks or activities at school or at home, examples, toys, pencils, books, assignments (14) [the child] often engages in physically dangerous activities without considering the possible consequences, (example, runs into the street without looking). B. Onset before the age of seven. C. Does not meet the criteria for Pervasive Developmental Disorder. These criteria would seem rather funny if they didn't result in these children being turned into drug addic

Re:Ritalin is legal "Speed", a sham, for profit.

[somersault]

sure, doctors maybe hand out medicine too readily these days as an easy substitute for counselling and other ways of dealing with problems. I'm on meds for depression rather than ADHD though. Also after coming off my meds before I had a 2 month episode where I had symptoms in line with OCD, which I realise now I've always exhibited in a really mild way, but during those 2 months it was pretty hellish. I'm on different meds now, I'm hoping that they won't have the same side effects once I come off them. A couple of wikipedia articles I read mentioned that the original drug I was on has elements that actually make depression worse, and the new one I'm on is the same drug, with those elements removed.. so I'm thinking that the part of the drug that was responsible for making depression worse was to blame for the OCD episode.. I did come off the pills a bit abruptly too, it was stupid of me (a friend had done the same thing and just was a bit cranky for a couple of weeks, but he was on different meds, and his 'depression' was actually caused by a vitamin deficiency after having part of his bowel removed..)

Re:Ritalin is legal "Speed", a sham, for profit.

[NRAdude]

without prejudice,
M. Gregory Thomas(tm), Network Redundancy Administrator;
Mundt Administration of Network Redundancy:

sure, doctors maybe hand out medicine too readily these days as an easy substitute for counselling and other ways of dealing with problems.

I learned to not be quick on presuming when there is an actual doctor present or there is someone "acting" like a doctor rather than be one. Some dress as would a doctor and time to time they act like a marketer for a product that doesn't need a doctor. All the children that blessed me with their presence were always behaviorally over-active because of the excitement of life, and I riled them up too much because of all the fun things that could be done; they would listen to me and want so to be with me out in the forests and plains to find things or collect creatures, that the remaining world that limits their excitement becomes nothing more than a sadistic dream. It's civilization that worsens life, from the toxic plastics used to store food and to the trends marketed to society to bend one's opinion to a momentary artifice of politic.

That's true that food consumption is the cause of most disorder in the nervous system. Especially it is known all additives to food are the cause of it, in preservation to enhancing the flavor in a premature way. Just to recollect that the Federal FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION defines "drug" as "any substance advertised to cure a disease." It is to say that a drug marketed to "cure" depression by causing depression, is thereby to say it cured your disease like cement curing under the sun! In my experience, I've never seen a doctor in a white lab-coat; they're all marketers, and no different than the "part swappers" in a garage and "paint mixing machine" operators at Homo Depot. Maybe remove the conflict of interest that AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION causes in the market of products in favor of stockholders, then there would be someone more qualified to be a doctor.

I've been around families that would argue with you for political reasons that conflict with my property or another's property, and just assume to diagnose any as mentally ill or compelled to use medication just to dim the smart wit out of the presentation of the counter-defense to their argument. Those are the same corrupting into the actual Doctors that work to visit the sick at their domicile to not cause any disease spread by meeting at a confined building (think HMO). Good health to you, and try to get a hold of some authentic Tibetan Goji berries, because they are as near to a natural remedy for all cases of alleged disease or non-disease effects of nutrition imbalance.

Telcos are NOT the free market

[SonicSpike]

Telcos are NOT in the free market. The barriers to entry are so high because of government granted monopolies and legislation/regulation in favor of big business. Remember big business like big government because big government can outlaw competition!

Looks like the parenting begins on Slashdot.

[NRAdude]

without prejudice,
M. Gregory Thomas(tm), Network Redundancy Administrator;
Mundt Administration of Network Redundancy:

If I had mod-points, then I would mod you up to prove one point; your use of a trademark "Ritalin" to tread alleged disease and disability, as opposed to using the scientific or common names from which Ritalin is actually legalized "Speed"

Yes, there is an answer: Ritalin.

But seriously, most of the time bad behavior is the result of misunderstood parenting.

Some people give the kid no boundaries and not enough guidance, which is a disaster.
Some people give their kids too many boundaries and too much guidance, which also is a disaster.

(And quite a few parents get it right)

The kid in scenario 1 will feel like their parents don't love it and don't care for its wellbeing.
The kid in scenario 2 will either rebel, or become a follower unable to make its own decisions.

Balanced does it. The real world is an ambiguous place, and your job is to prepare your kid for the real world.

If a remedy to Alzheimer's disease appeared in the form of a commercial solution, monopolized to sell an expensive refined derivative of an inexpensive herb that grows almost as easy as a Dandelion, would you call it Cannabis Indica/Sativa, Marijuana, or "MD GreenHeal Plus(tm)"?

Other than that, good post; it shows how that anyone that actually intends to be "parent" is looking more to satisfy their schedule, whether too much or too little of the application of parenting, rather than casually enjoin situation with experience as an equal to the child they parent. Some parents prefer their children misbehave in front of them to a stimulus, and ease a remedy that is both unmistakably and attractively superior and beneficial to the tedious and over-exertion inherint in the misbehavior. There are also some parents that are just as incline to misbehave in their remedy, that the children would misbehave elsewhere and not in the presence of the parent; causing the double life many would see fit to store on FACEBOOK.COM and MYSPACE.COM :-).

Long distance, background noise, etc

[phorm]

Texts are also good for:

Long distance: Calling cards are cheap, mind you, but sometimes it's simpler to text
Textual or memory info: If somebody reads me out an address, I have to find a pen and paper, write it down etc. For addresses, I usually get them to text it. Then it's in my phone for good
Noisy environments: If you're in a loud bar/etc, a text message is a lot easier to understand and doesn't need to be punctuated with *CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?*

BINGO

[ZxCv]

My parents made me pay for it, of course.

And here, we have the difference between good parents (yours) and bad parents (see article).

Re:1100 messages? How cute!

[JonnyO]

It's an old monitoring app, developed by a female friend of mine. To criticize this service of hers would jeopardize my receiving other "services" from her. And we can't have that now, can we. :-)