The Cultures of Texting In Europe and America

Ponca City, We Love You writes "The cultures of text messaging are very different in Europe and North America, according to an internet sociologist named Danah Boyd. Americans and Canadians have historically paid to receive text messages, but 'all-you-can-eat' data plans are beginning to change that. All-you-can-eat plans are still relatively rare in Europe. When a European youth runs out of texts and can't afford to top up, they simply don't text. But they can still receive texts without cost so they aren't actually kept out of the loop. What you see in Europe is a muffled fluidity of communication, comfortable but not excessive. "

Comments

Cheap unlimited data in Europe

[jholster]

More and more phones are data-enabled, but only the techno-elite are going to add such ridiculously costly plans. (And what on earth can you do with only 4MB?) It's pretty clear that the carriers do not actually want you to use data. The story is even scarier in Europe with no unlimited options. Not true. I pay 10 eur per month for unlimited 384 kbps 3G data in Finland. Even unlimited 2 Mbps costs no more than ~30 eur per month. Pretty cheap I think, and this is common price level in Finland.