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Texting On the Rise In the US
frontwave links to this stat-laden overview of trends in text-messaging among Americans, citing a few of its findings: "The average teen (even including teens without cell phones) sends and receives five times more text messages a day than a typical adult. A teen typically sends or receives 50 text messages a day, while the average adult sends or receives 10. Fully 31% of teens send more than 100 texts a day and 15% send more than 200 a day, while just 8% and 5% of adults send that many, respectively."
I receive 10 a month.
And back in the Europe this was (became?) trend like 10 years ago.
Of course when you grow up it becomes less and less important and you use other mediums of communication, like actually talking with people instead of taking 5 minutes to reply.
Honestly, I hope they find some better way for teens (or anyone, really) to send small bits of text to others with mobile devices in the near future. Text messaging with tiny numberpads/keyboards is a royal pain in the ass. I know that people like the portability of smart phones and the like, but at the same time, I really do feel privileged to have stuck by my desktop for as long as I have given the comparative robustness of communications options it has offered over the years.
I'm thinking we need some kind of stripped-down EEG device for mobile phones, because it's obvious that increasing the size of the interface/keypad isn't going to work out terribly well (unless they use something like a virtual keyboard that projects onto common surfaces and uses a scanner/camera to record keystrokes).
I always wondered why the Americans adopted SMS sooooo later than European
Pumbaa! I don't wonder; I know.
id hv thort it waz hi'er tbh m8 seamz bit lo 2 me
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
We're glad you could join us in blindly walking into lamp posts while stumbling and texting down the street.
Congratulations USA ..... Welcome to 2002!
Oh, and ....First?
... the impact this has on their verbal language skills.
First there was the carrying of messages.
Then came the telegraph with the morse code.
Then finally came speech over the wire and radio wave.
And now we are back to text?
I guess this is my age showing, but what is the advantage of sending text when I can just make a call?
The average adult sends or receives 10 texts a day
Wow. I sends or receive 10 texts a month!
really? this is news?
I live in europe and I and most of the people I knew texted like that.
Teenagers like to talk, gossipe and plan meeting up.
It's what they do.
People with unlimited texting become throttled for "being an above average strain on the network" or some other bullshit like that?
"The average teen (even including teens without cell phones)..." is that really what they should be measuring? i'd think stats regarding the average teen with a cellphone would mean a lot more...
weinersmith
"The average teen (even including teens without cell phones)..." is that really what they should be measuring? i'd think statistics about the average teen with a cell phone would mean a lot more.
weinersmith
In 1992, I was the first teen at school to carry a palmtop around in all my lessons (geek!), a Psion Series 3a.
In 1995, I joined the ham radio club at school.
In 1998, I first browsed the 'net using a mobile from a tethered computer in McDonalds in London.
In 1999, I bought the Motorola Timeport, the first triband WAP 'phone.
I've gone through Palm PDAs, Librettos, iPaqs, etc. (Never a Newton, though.)
Anyway I guess my point is that I've had fun with some early-ish little boxes.
Today I send on average about 0.1 texts per day, and hate them. Seriously, 50 a day, what the fuck? Am I alone in feeling this?
...is that adults are texting during driving a car, that's more difficult.
The report from which the numbers are derived can be found here
It's worth having a read of, there's some rather fascinating demographic info in there that could really make for an interesting chat. Oh, and the report shows that 24% of teens send under 10 messages a day, girls more than boys, older more than younger, generally the same across racial and economic groupings.
And this is surprising because...? I don't understand why it amazes anyone that kids text more than adults. Even without taking into account that kids embrace technology more than (some) adults, we have many reasons for the "findings" of the study:
1) Kids have more spare time.
2) Kids spend their time communicating with their friends.
3) In classes, texting is the only possible way to communicate with others without the teacher catching on to you (electively replacing the secret notes of our generation)
Probably many more reasons, but I don't feel like trying too hard thinking about them. I'll SMS you when I figured out some more.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
The original report can be found here.
Have a quick read over the original Pew study if you can, there's some decent info in there that could support a really interesting chat. Oh, and 24% of teens are sending under 10 messages a day, girls more than boys, older more than younger, and generally the same across racial and economic groups.
I'm sure if you looked into the number of minutes each group talks on the phone, you would find the breakdown in reverse. I find nothing surprising in this article.
fst pst
And this is a surprise because...? Even without taking into account the fact that many children embrace technology much more than many adults, we can find many reasons for the "findings" of the study:
1) Children have more spare time.
2) Children spend much of their time communicating with their friends, and texting is an effective way to accomplish that.
3) Texting is probably the only safe way to communicate during classes, apart for the old time method of passing a note.
Probably many more reasons, but I'm too tired to think about them.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
until all those teens realize the cellular carriers are royally screwing them on texting plans, and rise up to do something about it?
100 per day... Imagine 14 hours in a day being awake, that is 7 per hour.
I wouldn't have time to do other things anymore!
bash$
Damn, I don't send any!
Smivs on the intertubes!
The data is taken from a Pew study, the original of which can be found here. There's some decent info in there, more than enough to support a really interesting chat if anyone cares to dig in. Oh, and 24% of teens text under 10 times a day, girls more than boys, older more than younger, and generally the same across racial and economic groups.
txtng sur iz weerd comunikatn iz dvlovn
...
How in the hell would you have have time to do anything besides send 200 texts a day?
are on the rise to YOUR MOUTH!
I luv slow newz monday.
I'm a teenager (19) and I would say that my average is about 2 per day, though I am Australian and not your typical teen (sad, I know.) but I would say that the most I have ever sent in a day would have been about 20.
How kids could *average* 50 per day is beyond me - and wouldn't Facebook be replacing a lot of texting so shouldn't the number be much lower?
even including teens without cell phones
I would be surprised if not including them would have changed the result by more than the error margins.
This is ridiculous, no one I know is sending 50 texts a day, just think of the time it takes to type all of those, let them be received and read and finally replied to so the person would send the next text. Even taking into account multiple texts per message (aka >160 characters per message) and the odd occasion where one would send to multiple recipients it just doesn't make any sense.
My guess is these numbers are per week at most.
How can "teens without cell phones" send and receive texts ?
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
I really thought paying a fixed amount for 160 characters would die out in favour of proper communication. Email, IM and IRC are still very marginal on phones.
Wow.
Is it me, or is that really a lot?
And 15% send more than 200 text messages per day? Even if that takes 15 seconds per text message (reading or writing, assuming super fast texting, and the mandatory spelling mistakes), then they spend nearly 1 hour per day texting.
And the costs of texting must be quite significant too!
The only remark in TFA was that kids without mobile phones text too. So, do we include twitter then? Chat services?
And all that texting is in addition to the other technologies that the youngsters use (phone (mobile and land line), email, Facebook)?
Is it just me, or do these numbers seem a little too high?
-- My conclusion from this article is that I must be getting old.
I take it "adults" here is defined as 18-30? With everyone older going into the "Eww, gross!" category.
There's just no way that all adults average out to 10 messages a day.
sic transit gloria mundi
that addicted to something.
Then again, I use IRC. But, as long as something isn't controlling your life, no harm I guess.
There's some decent info in there, more than enough to support a really interesting chat if anyone cares to dig in. Oh, and 24% of teens text under 10 times a day, girls more than boys, older more than younger, and generally the same across racial and economic groups. And the relevent part of the report that the summary seems to have missed
First Text !
... because their parents pay the bill. When they grow up and have to pay the bills themselves, they'll switch to email, twitter or whatever is available for free.
I feel so autistic when I read this ...
50 SMS ? the average ? I think I peak at 20 ... rarely
There's some decent info in there, more than enough to support a really interesting chat if anyone cares to dig in. Oh, and 24% of teens text under 10 times a day, girls more than boys, older more than younger, and generally the same across racial and economic groups. And the relevent part of the report that the summary seems to have missed
first post
Maybe because adults have jobs while the kids have free time to waste. Then again as I grow older I would rather just call someone then send little txts back and forth.
The study is biased, only looks looks at cell phone owners, still a lot of text per person though.
"31% of teens send more than 100 texts a day and 15% send more than 200 a day"
If this follows a power law, there must be one poor fellow out there crunching through thousands of texts every day.
the zombies are here and they are texting
So what teens do lots of texting, is this news?
car crashes have gone up (even including people without cars).
Exactly how are teens *without_cell_phones* sending and receiving texts? Maybe I should go and read TFA... because I'm having a difficult time understanding that without picturing cyborgs or something.
Why not IM or some other sane method of communication? *headscratch*
D'Oh!
The average adult (even including adults without slashdot) sends and receives five times more slashdot comments a day than a typical teen. An adult typically sends or receives 50 slashdot comments a day, while the average teen sends or receives 10. Fully 31% of adults send more than 100 slashdot comments a day and 15% send more than 200 a day, while just 8% and 5% of teens send that many, respectively.
gtkaml.org
That's one message every 7 minutes and 12 seconds. Impressive. How high are those people's phone bills? Or are there unlimited text messaging plans available? And more importantly: how much of these messages actually contain any amount of significant information?
Before I went to Asia, I never sent a text message in my life. When I got back after my first stay, I started sending text messages to friends and such. Many of them had never received one before, and wondered why their phone was making that strange sound. People would just rather call you and say what they want to say instead of taking all the time to write out a text. I agree...to a point.
What's good about texts? Well, they're great when communicating with people who speak English as a second or third language. They have time to think about what they're going to say, and they have time to decipher what you say. Of course, mobile slang is extremely difficult for them. The advantages with native English speakers? You have time to reply at your leisure, and a record is kept of all conversations. If the recipient's phone is off, the network will store the message and deliver it when power is restored or when they pay their bill. Er...that's all I can think of.
Negatives about texts? The laborious nature of texting means that the English language is horribly mangled in order to fit. The only real solution is a keyboard...T9 is a kludge and letter-by-letter texting is just too much work. It condenses thoughts into tiny pieces to fit inside 140 characters. Text messaging is horribly expensive for its cost.
Frankly, I think a lot of people just send texts in order to be able to play with their phones. It's fun when you're stuck on a bus and bored, you can talk to six friends at once. But to get some work done or exchange real information, it's easier just to call. The bandwidth of voice is so much greater than that of text messaging. Heck, I even notice this with instant messaging (something else I never bothered with before Asia), it takes 40 minutes to have a conversation when the same phone call would have taken 5 minutes. People in my office will sit at their desks and send MSN to each other instead of talking. It's weird...a quiet office with no sound but clattering keyboards.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Wow, teenagers text more than adults? Seriously?
Somehow, I would have never guessed that...
We've all heard that line about SMS being the most expensive communications medium ever, so you've got to just take a minute on this one.
Collectively, people are absolute fucking retards who don't mind bending over - if they can use poor english to type messages to people with similarly shiny (read: expensive and/or network-locked) handsets, everything is just peachy.
Why would I actually choose to use some chicklets-keyboard, or way overly-sensitive virtual keyboard, when I can just _call_? I mean, it's a PHONE, gawddamnit!
Signed, Captain Curmudgeon Old Fart
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Seriously, no posts in the last 15 minutes on this topic? I'm doing first post out of sheer boredom here.
which is totally what she said
There's some decent info in there, more than enough to support a really interesting chat if anyone cares to dig in. Oh, and 24% of teens text under 10 times a day, girls more than boys, older more than younger, and generally the same across racial and economic groups. And the relevent part of the report that the summary seems to have missed
I really fail to see the point of this article, it simply shows that as technology becomes more ubiquitous, that it's use increases. It also shows that users introduced to a technology earlier in their lives, are more comfortable utilizing it. Don't get me wrong, the difference in the numbers is interesting, but I fail to see a point to the article beyond the numbers and the two points I mentioned. This isn't really anything new, in my opinion.
Must be a slow news day.
Geeks don't grock information, they grep it.
I always thought that the low use of SMS in the US was due to the prevalence of cars. In Europe people spend a lot of time sending them while in public transportation. Obviously you can't do that while commuting in your car, but you can still speak on the phone... however the consequences...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I'm 24 Years old, and usually send 9000-1200 text messages a month.
Fuck, this is not my phone, doh!
I only send or receive about 5 text messages a month. If that.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
In my case, we're not allowed to use our cell phones for 'personal calls' at work. So what I do several times a day is to text. I put my phone in vibrate mode so when I receive a response, I feel the vibration then I simply look at the gadget. That's your reason for the spike in texting.
first piss in a cactus drink post!
this article has been posted for a while now and still no comments? maybe the admins need to make some sort of sms-to-slashdot-comments-section bridge to lure in the next generation of visitors...
Had 2 typ lk this 2 gt it.
I'm texting my cock up your dead great grandmother's ass!
Txt
Across the pond, in the UK, the trend is the other way. Very few children spend their days texing; they used to, but no more.
For a contract, 600 free minutes is not unheard of, and adding unlimited texts is the norm. When you have 20 minutes of free talk time a day, why bother texting?
When texts were cheaper than voice, everyone texted.
These days, texting is for the olds (who still think it's cheaper).
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
And water is still wet
The problem that's becoming more frequent is the number of people who don't understand when it's not appropriate to have their phones out. My friend, who owns a small local specialty foods shop, has been astounded at the number of college-aged applicants who've pulled out phones and started texting in the middle of an interview.
In fact, the amount of once legendary "Kid pulls out his phone and casually texts during job interview/college admission interview/business negotiation/client meeting" incidents going down as of late has caused the middle-aged leader of the sales team at my company to dub texting "the best thing to ever happen to the job prospects of us old guys".
The typical teen sends more texts - by a factor of about 10 - per day, than I have ever sent.
Text messages and texting in general is just a stepping stone before always-on internet becomes the norm. Once everyone's phone is online constantly you will see people use AIM, Skype, or similar products instead. Apart from getting an instant reply and richer, longer, content, they're also cheaper. If you're paying for always-on internet anyway (which I'm assuming everyone will be) it will cost you nothing additional to message someone. Frankly the cell phone companies are only speeding up this process by charging, what most would agree, insane prices for text services. Right now 300 texts costs as much as "unlimited" (1 GB/month) internet.
There's some decent info in there, more than enough to support a really interesting chat if anyone cares to dig in. Oh, and 24% of teens text under 10 times a day, girls more than boys, older more than younger, and generally the same across racial and economic groups. And the relevent part of the report that the summary seems to have missed
Hello to America from 1998!
- Every other civilized country
Where the hell are they finding time between all of that texting to text even more ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Is it just me, or weren't the numbers already this hugely skewed? Wait, too. Am I honestly the only one who on a busy day might send/recieve four or five SMS messages toal in one day?
No, really. Am I? Also, frist psot!!!
Ten?! On average, I doubt I send more than one a week. I'm 19. Those people who send 200 must have bluetooth keyboards.
Call me or e-mail me. I've got e-mail on my cell phone, it makes a plinky sound, I answer it promptly, and it ultimately ends up on my computer where all the real work is done and tracked. If it's urgent, or you have a question requiring nuanced answers, call me. If you're contemplating texting me that you're going to be late or some other little small annoying news, grow a pair quickly and call me instead. I'd rather a phonecall from an adult than a dodgey text from a weasel.
Maybe I'm missing something, but for anyone with a smartphone, texting seems the third wheel on a bicycle.
text messaging is pants
Ten?! On average I doubt I send more than one per week. I'm 19. Those people who send 200 text messages per day must have bluetooth keyboards.
surely most unlimited/high limit text contracts are encouraging this rise
http://snappeh.com/blog/ - My Blog, not that any of you care...
Most average slashdot summaries (even including summaries that don't include statistics) are less confusing and ambiguous than this summary. But that's only if we are talking about _average_ summaries, not _typical_ summaries.
How extended are the mobiles with internet capability in the states? There should be a point where it's more expensive to send so many messages instead of having internet and using any of the thousands of alternatives.
Is that taking into account messages over 160 chars that are broken into two or more messages? Just a thought. In australia, i dont know of anyone that sends that many messages a day. The heaviest message-er (18 years old) that i know would only send about 20-30 a day.
IN LATE BREAKING NEWS: Kids with all the time in the world spend it texting their friends! Adults on the other hand, well, they do more productive things; like less texting.
do a control group of adults who get their cell phone bills paid for by someone else and see how the usage pattern varies from the adult norm.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I'm a university student, and I send and receive less than 5 a day, on average. (That's including events such as Humans vs Zombies week.) Then again, I'm the sort of nerd who spends his time on Slashdot...
I thought you USians told me that it hadn't caught on there?
even the average adult daily figures seem high.
For me in the UK I would prob say this happened around the year 2000 if not before. So this prob means litres, kilograms, meters and ISO paper is just around the corner for the USA soon then :-)
Is this new to anyone?
There's some decent info in there, more than enough to support a really interesting chat if anyone cares to dig in. Oh, and 24% of teens text under 10 times a day, girls more than boys, older more than younger, and generally the same across racial and economic groups. And the relevent part of the report that the summary seems to have missed
This does not imply a trend, since these groups are entirely different.
If the same group does it over time, then we see a trend. Compare random samples of adults over time and then you get a trend. You do not get a trend when you compare teenagers to adults.
Move along, there is absolutely nothing to see here.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Is everyone busy texting?
p05t
This post came from a cell telephone.
He's....he's not going to make it, better prepare for the worst. I mean "prpr 4 d wrst lol!"
Monstar L
If you want to call "OK" a "text".
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
now ppl in th us cn lrn txt spk 2
I am finding it very hard to believe this to be honest.
I barely send 2-3 messages a day - I talk to whoever I want on Instant Messenger instead.
And especially with smartphones (which can run IMs) on the rise - I don't see how anyone can send that many.
This does not imply a trend, since these groups are entirely different.
If the same group does it over time, then we see a trend. Compare random samples of adults over time and then you get a trend. You do not get a trend when you compare teenagers to adults.
Move along, nothing to see here.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
broken?
I can *feel* the 'OMG LOLS' as they pass through my skull.
Fully? The difference between 'and' and 'or' (both? either?). What kind of journalistic crap is this?
Honestly.
.
it'd be far more popular, as it is everywhere else in the world that does sender pays.
(I'm assuming I'm right when I've heard that in the US you pay for the SMSes you receive)
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
If you classify "OK" as a "text".
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
SMS is not a replacement of calls, it's complementary. Calls are intrusive, require full, unbroken attention, and are obtrusive to people around.
Calls are a valid method to pass urgent important message and the acknowledgment of receiving it is essential, or to ask an urgent short question. They are good when you want to conduct a longer conversation and both parties are not occupied.
Text messages are good for passing an announcement that doesn't require immediate attention or confirmation, to ask a question that may require research, to pass data that should be retained (written down) like addresses, directions, phone numbers (no, mom, don't dictate this to me, just disconnect and text me that address) and for a discrete conversation when normal phone call would be disruptive to others around.
You don't text strangers requiring answer - it's rude when they have to pay to answer unsolicited question.
You don't call when you suspect the other person is busy. You may text them to call (or ring) you when they have free time to call instead.
You may send text to remind about something.
You do not depend on SMS as the only channel with important messages. You only use them when calling fails, and then still try to reach the other party by means that let them acknowledge receiving the message.
SMS is no longer about being cheap. It's an essential element of the culture of communication.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
AMRCNS R SO LEM. TH RST OF TH WRLD HD LNG AG EMBRCD TXTNG. NW ITS EVN STRTNG 2 BCM UNCOOL. Had to type this to overcome Slashdot's lame filter. Text. Text. Text. Etc.
(even including teens without cell phones)/quote
I doubt accounting for such rarities significantly influences the stats.
first nig
I wonder wondering when the trend hit US. It's on the rise since about ten years here in Europe and it's incredible how much they text. 50? Joke. Many are almost abusing it like a chat, read: hundreds of messages a day. Poor parents who haven't though about that and have no rate which includes unlimited text ...
Is this a fuck piss?
I read the article and it doesn't explain anywhere how someone without a mobile can text anyone.
I mean, maybe they're using an online text messaging service, but that seems unlikely, as you might as well send them an email
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
I don't know anyone who sends that many texts in a week, let alone a day, and I know a lot of students.
I suspect that this is a case where the average is not terribly meaningful and a histogram or boxplot would be more useful. There must be a few people texting their thumbs off to offset all the people who don't spend their days looking at their phones.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I'm an adult (45) and I send and receive tens of SMS per day from myself to myself as part of a product testing effort that I'm involved in. Does that count as well? ;-)
Linux user since early January 1992.
if slashdot is broken or i'm actually making the first post...
i dont know about anyone else but i get and send less than 5 texts a month and im from england
I can *feel* the 'OMG LOL' as it passes through my skull.
Twitter, on the other hand, amplifies the number of texts you receive, and gives you more impetus to send to your friends.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
What is this? Was this study commissioned by the "Get Off My Lawn Association" or is the US mobile telecom industry really that far behind the rest of the world? This news really is a decade old; I can recall similar numbers coming out in Ireland and the UK back in 2000.
Despite the absurdity of US telecoms pricing schemes, I still can't believe that texting is still some kind of novel phenomena in the US at this late stage. There are kids in deepest Africa, darkest Peru and the wilds of Connemara who know what a text message is by now. The US baby boomers can't possibly still be ignorant of it can they?
May the Maths Be with you!
I know these are "average" stats and probably not much relevant for any individual, but I still find it surprising that anyone sends 100 text messages on average. Or are they including facebook messages and tweets as well?
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
Whoever invented word "texting" should be shot.
lol this fnny i luv txting!
Make America grate again!
The average teen (even including teens without cell phones) sends and receives five times more text messages a day than a typical adult. A teen typically sends or receives 50 text messages a day, while the average adult sends or receives 10.
Pew really ought to try interviewing a few people outside of the urban DJ population.
Take this no-name pastor from an obscure church who was threatening to burn the Koran. He didn’t burn any buildings or women and children. He didn’t even burn a book. He hadn’t actually laid a finger on a Koran, and yet the mere suggestion that he might do so prompted the President of the United States to denounce him, and the Secretary of State, and the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, various G7 leaders, and golly, even Angelina Jolie. President Obama has never said a word about honor killings of Muslim women. Secretary Clinton has never said a word about female genital mutilation. General Petraeus has never said a word about the rampant buggery of pre-pubescent boys by Pushtun men in Kandahar. But let an obscure man in Florida so much as raise the possibility that he might disrespect a book – an inanimate object – and the most powerful figures in the western world feel they have to weigh in. -- Mark Steyn
Possibly because we have better things to do then talk to people 160 chars at a time
As a techie, I send maybe one SMS per week. After a while you realize that there is such a thing as being *too* reachable. If you're getting dozens of SMS's a day, plus calls, IM, Twitter, and what not - well, there's no time to actually *do* anything.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
So? Is that supposed to be surprising or something?
0mg 0kxting is liek, t0taly laem. Wat r u d0in l0l? Im w0tchin TV :)
^ Snt dis fr0m mi f0ne l0l
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
Just checking.. been a long while since I last commented.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I wonder who has time to type that many text on a conventional mobile phone. 31% of teens sending more than 100 message per day is in my opinion manic. I thought that people needing to communicate that much already used Skype or similar software. Maybe I'm just a wierdo as I don't anyone who sends more than 10 messages a day on average. Or are the statistics biased? A biased sample of teens in the study? I don't know.
What's the point? In my opinion, the only things that cell phones are really good for is for calling people. Why send 50,000 text messages when you can just call them, or use the internet to communicate with them (oh wait, I forgot that far too many people barely know how to use a remote)?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I wonder how they count text messages for studies like this. Like, lets say I have a a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard. Does that still count as texting when I don't have to depend on T9 prediction to get something written quickly? What if I send the message via email instead of SMS? With smartphone and mobile Internet service usage on the rise, the amount of text being sent though the Net and not just a cell company's network has changed. What about messages sent via IM services from a phone? Those messages are generally short enough to fit in an SMS, but are sent in real time back and forth and displace regular texting in such a situation since they are more convenient for talking back and forth in a focused manner.
There is, at the same time, a recent article on the CBC website saying that Mounties are asking people (especially youths) to please not text messages to 911.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
If TXT was free, or something reasonable like 1 cent / message, I would use it more. Currently, my carrier (Bell Canada) charges 10 cents / message both outbound AND inbound. At that cost, it is way too expensive for me to use TXT casually. And I don't have a need for it to justify a $5 / month 100 TXT add on to my bill.
TXT costs carriers $0 since it uses unused space in the protocol, so I don't see how they feel justified in 10 cents / message. From my understanding TXT is much cheaper in Europe.
Final point - with nearly everyone I know having a smart phone, TXT is not even very useful. It is just as simple and fast to send an email or Twitter DM as a TXT message, and costs me nothing.
Sounds like you are catching up with Europe for kids texting.
Now... if only your texts were always free to receive and often free to send, like over here.
A teen has just texted me TFA.
I honestly can't understand the popularity of things like SMS messaging. How can you even say anything remotely of significance or intelligence with only 160 ch
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Does this matter to anyone but a bunch of vendor marketing droids?
this sms thng drivs m cz
My other signature is a car
lol
...people are texting
A teen typically sends or receives 50 text messages a day
This could easily be misinterpreted and result in double-dipping, if you carelessly multiply that number by the number of teens in the US. I know the number is only there to compare with adults, and it's fine, but generally speaking it would make more sense to say "A teen typically sends 25 text messages a day" or "A teen typically receives 25 text messages a day", otherwise you're counting the same messages twice.
heya,
I'm surprised that something like Google Voice hasn't taken over in the US for SMSes...any reason?
I have a Voice account, but I'm in Australia =(. It doesn't make sense though, SMSes surely aren't the most efficient way of transmitting messages, and their cost is also way our of proportion to the cost to the provider. Also, with unlimited data plans available now, surely it makes more sense to use TCP as the transport?
Cheers,
Victor
Considering that prices have gone down a lot in the past couple of years (I've noticed no-contract prepaid plans with unlimited text + data as low as $25/month, with QWERTY phones $100 -- prices that were unheard of here in the U.S. a couple of years ago), and the fact that the selection of phones designed for messaging (e.g., those with keyboards and/or touch screens) has increased so much over the past couple of years.
1st txt. ttyl.
With my first serious girlfriend (yes, I know, this is Slashdot, but just accept it for a moment), we didn't see each other a lot. We both had 'unlimited' text bundles, which were actually capped at 3000 per month. We both hit that cap, every single month. It's shockingly easy to send 100 texts a day when phone calls are off the cards because of lectures you're supposed to be paying attention to.
Now, I probably send around 150 a month, if that.
And to think that I have many days go by without any texts. I wonder how much of what these people say is actually meaningful in any way?
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1572/teens-cell-phones-text-messages from April 2010.
The sun is expected to rise tomorrow.
It seems that nobody cares about this issue. 1st post.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Text messaging on Sprint is an extra $20 and then $10 per additional phone. Exactly how are teens affording this? Hell, I'm an adult. Make well into six figures. Am a long-time development engineer. Gadget and high tech oriented, for life. Even I can't see a reason to spend $20/mo on texting (and I don't).
Does this make an newsworthy item? A blog entry that, as only source, states "a recent report from the Pew Research Center" ?
I guess I know now why nobody at Slashdot cares to RTFA.
But traditional texting is in decline in favor of internet based Ping and such. What'sApp is getting realy popular and it's everywhere; iPhone, Android...
Here be signatures
I just checked. 1277 messages in my inbox.
too bad it took me 2 years to gather them. I think 50 texts a day is way to much, unless it's all "KTHXBYE" or "OMGWTFBBQ".
TFA doesn't say much about the contents of the texts, but i guess that texting is your kind of mobile IM'ing. to bad receiving texts costs money in the usa,
because over here (netherlands) it's free..
The dog was quoted as saying "bark!" and the man said "ow!"
I rarely send 10 in a month, and I'm not really that old.
My first cell phone was a Qualcomm 2700 dual band on Sprint PCS (back when they were called that). Maybe since I started off using a phone to make phone calls the idea of text messaging didn't have that much appeal to me when it became a big idea several years later?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I cant even send 100 texts in a month and that month's number is many times the usual amount I usually send.
As a teenager in the house might say tldr. But I have my theories on the rise of texting. Texting is cheaper than voice calls, while at the same time more portable than email. With the focus on "cheaper", I suspect most of those teenagers are using non-smart phones (perhaps feature phones but no iPhones or Androids) which would allow them to use more advanced communications methods (like IM or Facebook). Google and Apple still have their work cut out.
What?! A covert method for children to communication without adults overhearing them is popular? Inconceivable! This is also the 21st version of passing notes in class... I'm waiting for the next gen of phones will simply allow you to "think" text messages, thereby eliminating the clicking of keypads.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
I receive about 3 or 4 a week, but it's all spam.
Useless without knowing the distribution, much like "TV viewing hours".
Example, the supposedly average American watches TV for 5 hours per day. Every Day.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/24/business/fi-tvwatching24
However the way that actually works, is out of ten people, lets say 3 of them are semi-institutionalized. Either prison, nursing home, elderly shut-in, hospital stay, unemployed, jury duty, home on a sick day from work, whatever, so three of them watch TV for sixteen hours a day, just to fill up their empty lives. Of the remaining seven or so people, a couple of them might watch for an hour. That adds up to 50 hours for 10 people, theoretically 5 hours per person.
I suspect texting has a similar distribution. One overly social teenage girl whom sends 500 texts per day (spam the entire class to vote for her for class president? Vote for some moron over and over on a TV game show?) and nine normal people whom don't send texts at all, theoretically averages out to 50 texts per person per day.
The median would have been much more interesting. And probably a low single digit number.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Mine normally consist of,
Me: Pub?
Friend: K, 8ish?
Me: k
Same here. If I get 3 a month, that's a lot, and I rarely send any (I prefer to call rather than engage in a back and forth texting frenzy).
Maybe I'm too e-mail/IM centric and satisfy my textual communication needs with my peers that way?
Yeah, but a lot of people don't have smartphones (featurephones generally have email, but generally manage to make it even awkwarder to use than SMS), and some of those who do got it merely as a status symbol, but actually use it the same as they always used their old dumbphone.
people to eat themselves to death? that's just this morning? no wonder we're supposed to think we came from (monk)eys?
I'm 26, and texting is my primary means of communication with friends. I find it easier to bust a text in a few seconds, then be free to go off and do other things.
Living With a Nerd
I can go up to 500/day on certain weeks.
Texting On the Rise In the US Texting on the rise, correct spelling an endangered species and proper grammar totally extinct.
Long live the USA!
How are mass-texts counted? If the study is counting texts sent to multiple people as multiple texts (as most US carriers charge for them on non-unlimited plans), the numbers seem a whole lot smaller.
i.e.: Something like "Do you want to come with me to lunch?" sent to 10 friends now becomes 10 messages sent and 5 messages received.
Depending on the size of kids' social circles, 10-15 group texts could easily get them up to the 100-200 message mark.
Wow. Just Wow. How do you find time to eat?
Hell, I sometimes go 2 or 3 weeks without even turning my phone ON. I don't think my send and receive together add up to 10 a YEAR.
'Course, there's essentially zero coverage at my house. Texts CAN get through there, but it takes up to 2 or 3 hours by my tests.
I'm deaf. I've sent 2,802 messages during my last billing period (08/21/2010-09-20/2010). I find that reasonable.
I'm curious to know what percentage of these "teens" and "adults" are hearing impared?
I find that there are some signal areas too marginal for voice/data connections that can let sms through.
It must be something to do with their price plans. Everyone I know (here in the UK) gets free txts or unlimited txts for a fixed price, usually with inclusive talk time and mobile broadband.
Another advantage of txts is that you can send a txt to multiple recipients, New Years Eve is a good example, twenty seconds to write 'Happy New Year' (longer if you are REALLY drunk!), and then just send it to all your contacts!
thanks for youre detalis
http://www.fo6ball.com
500 texts * 10 words/per text average / 60 Words Per Minute = 125 minutes.
Plenty of time to eat. Regardless, 500 texts/day was a bit of an embellishment, I only do that a few times a year. I'd say my texting average is around 500/week for the most part.
Since we have a server configured to use SMS to notify when equipment has failed...
There have been times where I've received well over 200 messages in a 1 day period of time...
Yeah I'm probably close to that. Maybe 1 or 2 a week.
My daughter on the other hand, went through each tier of texting "plans" from the carrier like tissue paper and now is very close to the 1500 per month mark. She was already 16 when we got her a first cell phone (we're Amish, OK? You got a fuckin' problem with that?). Anyway, her first plan allowed like 200 texts and the first month my bill was approximately the size of the defense budget she went so many over the limit. Even though she's a math major now she apparently couldn't count to 200 at age 16. When they took me off the heart monitor, I changed the plan to 500 or 1000 or something and then just gave up the next month, because apparently she has lost the power of speech and can only speak with her thumbs now.
By the way, she's the one who sends me the 1 or 2 text messages I get every week. She's learned that as long as she sends me a text or two a week so I know she's alive, I don't complain too loudly about paying the bill. We're unable to actually speak when we're around the house because one or both of us is always wearing earbuds. My wife has to scream to get our attention. My dog has figured out that when she wants my attention, she has to head butt my leg if I'm wearing the earbuds because whining to be taken for a walk no longer works. It's a strange family, strange household.
You are welcome on my lawn.
10+ years ago, instant messaging became popular. So who wouldn't of guessed mobile instant messaging wouldn't be popular today. Shocking...
I'm the same age range, and though I feel like a teenage girl whenever I use it it is becoming one of my most reliable means of communicating. It's nice because it forces you to boil down your message into simple and direct language. You just don't have the freedom to be as long winded as you might be in an e-mail.
The major reason I like it is that it allows people to respond at their own convenience. It gives you a way to request a timely but non-immediate response. IMO the urgency of a text message falls somewhere between a phone call and an e-mail.
(I'm assuming I'm right when I've heard that in the US you pay for the SMSes you receive)
It all depends on the plan you have for your phone. A lot of plans are bundled with "unlimited texting", which presumably means both ways. On the opposite end of the spectrum are plans like mine (I send less than 10 text messages in an average month) that don't include any messages. I actually pay to send and to receive; 15 cents each. Hence if I send a message to someone and they reply by text that is 30 cents I just kissed goodbye to. In the middle are plans that include some number of send or receive messages per month.
On a related note I was at the mall over the weekend with my wife and we walked past the store for our carrier. They are now offering "family texting" plans - useful since we have a family plan for our phones - for $20 a month on top of the cost of the plan itself. Then I did the math and realized we would have to send/receive at least 130 messages a month to make it make sense; so we kept walking...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
My Fiance and I live 2 hour drive apart, and we both work all day and are pretty busy...its great for texting during breaks at work as we have different schedules we can keep each other informed about the day in short bursts...which we can read when we each are free....we both have lg phones with slide out keyboard which makes texting a snap and very quick (quicker than my work blackberry).
We have the sound turned off during work and after hours we have it as a simple beep that doesnt bother others which lets me know to check it.
If i lived in the same town as my gf i probably wouldnt need to text....
When we are together the phones are set to phone only mode for emergencies
Texting is a rip off however since we dont use the phones for talking we just use the unlimited texting plan for about 12 dollars a month pay as you go (the phones are a lot cheaper pay as you go 100 dollars than on a plan , why is caller id costing 5 dollars for plan users but free for pay as you go?)
I see a few comments here about the price of text messages. Are they particularly expensive in the US compared to elsewhere? Most people I know in the UK have unlimited texts or something like 500 per month in their phone bundle so cost is minimal.
For info, 46 years old, about 50-75 texts per month.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I want to see the bell curve on this - neither i nor most of my friends use text messaging.. and the ones that do i would say use less than 1 a day (we are in the 25-35 age group).. but we all have cell phones and most of us have "smart phones" either iphone/crackberry/blackjacks.. but even using for e-mail.. we don't go back and forth to each other.. the e-mail is there for work.. (i talk more to servers than i do to people).
i can't imagine how high the some of the numbers are to make the average 10 a day..
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
60 WPM on a mobile device 'keyboard'? Impressive, *if* true.
You just don't have the freedom to be as long winded as you might be in an e-mail.
IME, that's more because you're most likely to be using a phone with a tiny keypad when sending a text. An email sent using a phone would be similarly brief.
Do you have kids? I know that many of my co-workers complain that their kids won't communicate with them via any form but text messages. So if you're the parents of one of those teens that sends more than 100 text messages per day, I'd imagine that your text message numbers are higher than average as well.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
From a convenience perspective, I'd get a consumer cell repeater - they're around 300 USD last time I checked; a friend installed one in his house and it works really well. The only stipulation is that where you have the antenna you must have signal or it's kind of pointless (roof etc.)
I also was involved with purchasing one for work. Came with a yagi antenna that you point at the cell tower of your choice - there's a site on the 'nets that can point out the basic direction of a cell tower in your area. Probably closer to 800 or so but definitely worthwhile if part of your business requires solid cell phone coverage due to being on call or just generally reachable. I find it easier to give out one work cell phone number rather than my desk phone, home phone and personal cell phone.
Karnal
I can't imagine how high the some of the numbers are to make the average 10 a day..
If you're bored at school it's relatively easy to have a long conversation by text, especially if you have unlimited messages for a flat cost. You're also more likely to have friends who are in a position to reply to mostly-pointless messages.
I'm 24, so about the only time I have a long text conversation is if I'm on a long train journey -- like school, there's nowhere else to go, I've time to kill, and it's impolite to have a voice conversation.
I can beat that. Not counting automated monitoring squawks, I receive less than 1 per month from humans. I give thanks for this regularly. While the ability to communicate in media other than voice, from just about anywhere has it's merits, it is in most case a barrier to effective communication. No one can type as fast as they can talk, so when you factor in the time it takes for the sender to actually type, actually getting the message takes far longer than just reading it. The only real benefit of text is that, as ImNotAtWork observes below, you don't annoy others with your conversation. That is, of course unless you're the dickhead in the movie theater who thinks that his bright 4" screen is not annoying every single person seated behind him.
Sorry, but texting is nothing more than a 19th century technology without the latency of telegrapher and courier.
Kids use phones more than adults, so what? Is the fact that teens are generally hyperactive social creatures really news?
When I was a teenager, I'm sure I used our landline to talk 5-10 times as much as the average adult. At one point, my parents even got a second phone line for me and my sister because we used the phone too much.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I'm 28, and it's not my *primary* method of communicating with people, but I do use it. What I've found texts most useful for is sending messages to friends during the work day. When at work I might still want to send a short message to someone. Now typically, I'm of the "Just call them" mentality, but during the work day you never know when someone is busy or what-not. They may not have the time to answer the phone at any random time during those hours. So, I send a text. If they're busy, they wait to read it and respond when they get time. The same applies to me when I'm in the office - I prefer texts during business hours so that I can respond in my own time.
Like anything, it's a tool. Use it where it's useful.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Troll...?
<sig> </sig>
When Swype is working correctly, it's not too bad to do. Granted, 60WPM is really pushing it since that is pretty much the world record for texting :P
50WPM isn't hard to maintain though.
Sort of.
For a start I can tell you that those IRC chats tend to involve a keyboard. SMS messages on a phone keyboard are probably going to take a minute each to type, if they're longer than basically "LOLWUT??"
They also did tend to suck some attention and time, even with a keyboard and a big screen to track the discussions on. (Yes, I know some people like to pretend they're natural born multitaskers and they could do their research for an assignment while participating in three channels and five DCC private conversations, but... actually according to recent studies it turns out that nobody is very good at that, and actually people who think they're good at it, are in reality the worst at multitasking. They actually scored worse than the professed non-multitaskers at keeping track of multiple things at the same time.)
So, yes, especially for those mentioned as going over 200 a day, and presumably also reading a hundred or two, that would be a significant chunk of the day. Whether in a burst or interspersed with something else, that may vary, but the latter only means they're even more likely to come out of that class not remembering either what the teacher said _or_ much of the conversation they had.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
When my girlfriend and I hooked up in my senior year of high school, her parents flipped out because she had (sent+received) over 30,000 text messages per month. And even then we had no problem hanging out and living our lives, she was just an extreme textaholic. I haven't done the math to prove my numbers, because I know for a fact it's true. Someone else can do the math if they want.
I blocked txt as I don't want to pay for incoming and why should I have to pay $5 - $15 more for a txt plan just to be able send a text from time to time just so I don't have to pay $0.20+ a txt for incoming spam and ad's that I don't even want?
I receive 10 a month.
I receive 10 a year. Seriously. And most of them are unsolicited ads for Viagra.
Sorry, but texting is nothing more than a 19th century technology without the latency of telegrapher and courier.
What has the age of the tech/concept got to do with anything?
Telegrams are nothing but millenia old tech without the parchment, which are just improvements upon stone tablets.
Talking is even older but it still seems to be in vogue amongst humans sharing the same local area.
IMO texting, emails, IM, message boards and otehr social networking services etc are far better than talking to people on the phone - they let you get on with your work/life as necessary, and check your messages when you have time (well, that's the idea, though sometimes it works the other way).
which is totally what she said
In SMS Shorthand:
fst = first, fast?
pst = post, past, pest?
This is why I hate texting... t9 is bullshit so not many use it, then people send messages that are incomprehensible and expect immediate responses. When I'm at work talking to somebody and they keep getting distracted to reply to something not work related. I hate it all.
Or am I crazy to think that?
I receive 12 a year, and that's only because I can't work out how to turn off the "reminder" text that appears each month reminding me to pay for the next month (I use a prepay "plan") - which is really silly since they automatically charge my credit card anyway...
The 10 a day was for adults not students
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
I find it easier just to ignore the text (or the need to text) and then I'm STILL free to do other things.
I get the importance of text (I have two teenage kids and it's our primary method of communication throughout the school day), but I DON'T get the importance of texting for purely social (as in "sooo bored, sumbody txt me!") reasons. Kids who are texting out of boredom really need to get a life.
I saw a young couple at a restaurant the other day (obviously on some sort of "date") and as soon as the waiter took their drink orders, they both busted out their phones then texted throughout my entire meal. That's a pretty hot date right there. Wouldn't surprise me if they were texting each other.
I'm not sure I'd compare texting as an email substitute as I would a phone call substitute. I frequently replace a phone call with a text, but I don't think I've ever replaced an email with a text.
Then again, I would never email something that could simply be texted either.
So you were dating somebody who sent and received 30,000 text messages a day...must of been a very fulfilling relationship.
I find the claim of 60 wpm amazing. I use a tracfone where you have to push a number key about 7 times in a row to add a period to the end of a sentence and I haven't figured out how to turn off ALL CAPS. Reading this article is making me realize that, by the standards of many younger people, I am (in one sense) illiterate. I was working with a college kid and when he asked for my cellphone number and I had to look it up he laughed in my face. But I just don't enjoy being in touch all the time.
>>>it forces you to boil down your message into simple and direct language.
I wonder if phones will ever evolve to have email-length texts?
I was disappointed that VirginMobile eliminated their $15/month Texters Delight plan. That was a perfect plan for those who rarely call but do use texting. Now if you want the same service you have to spend $25. Good for the company but sucks for us. (I was similarly disappointed that Dish eliminated their $20 Family TV plan.) It seems these companies are eliminating all their budget options when families need them most.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I have been using SMS more and more ever since Google Voice offered free SMS (at least for US numbers) and a smartphone has made an SMS to email transition a feasible mobile solution.
NO CARRIER
Teenagers average 50 texts a day?
That truly was news to me. The teenagers I know average 50 texts an hour.
I've never run into the 'limit' on txt messages. I've typed some VERY long ones....and they go through just fine.
I guess the iphone breaks them up and puts them together on each end to just keep it looking like one long message?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
At night, well, I like a little peace and quiet, and not generally IN a mood to talk on the phone...so, I rarely like to use voice on the phone.
This actually seems to work with most of my friends, except for one. He just seems to HATE txt or email...and insists he get phone calls, at home in the evening (don't call him at work, he says is too busy and doesn't like personal calls there). Well, he tends to get left out of things. Most of the time during the week, my other friends and I communicate all day long with email/txt...and have things for the weekends, or some week nights planned out without ever speaking to each other at all on the phone.
My friend? Well, he refuses to be in the loop...won't pay the extra for txting on his personal phone, but won't leave his work cell phone on which does have paid for texting...and well, we want him along, but we often forget to go home, and physically call him.
I like to talk to my friends in person....but we use txt and email to plan get togethers.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hey...as long as he was still able to bang her...who cares what/when she was texting??
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
And in other news a new study has found that younger generations are more apt to adopt and utilize new $technology. This study further explains that older generations can't possibly conceive how this generation could use $technology, because since they can't imagine themselves using it obviously no one else could be using it so frequently. The younger generation would have pointed out this rationale is solipsistic, but unfortunately they have no idea what that word means.
Really? This is ground-breaking news? We needed a study for this?
I have one. With the antenna on the roof and carefully pointed at the nearest tower (about 5 miles away, behind lots of trees) it did improve the performance a bit; now you can usually make a voice call that you can usually understand and probably will not drop more than once a minute, and texts now make it through in 30 to 45 minutes.
I only got it because my daughter came home from college and "couldn't live" with no coverage at all. Personally I don't really care. I use Google voice so as long as I'm near SOME phone, it doesn't really matter which one. If I'm at home, I use that phone, if I'm not, I use the cell.
An sms only really has one requirement, that the sender and recipient both have cell-phones, regardless of cell provider.
With IM, there are tons of choices, all of which are basically inoperable (not counting having Trillian running 20 different accounts). For IM to be as easy, there would need to be one widely accepted IM client-of-choice. As it is now, I know people on AIM, Y! Messenger, MSN, Google, FB Chat and plenty of others.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
You mean phones turn off??
I only turn my phone off when it needs a reboot...but then again, I don't have a landline, my cell phone *IS* my only phone..so, it has to stay on all the time.
Doesn't mean I have to answer it every time...that's what voicemail is for...
I didn't really know what texting was....till Katrina hit.
After the storm, for months, you could not receive calls if you had a 504 area code, but we all discovered that txt messages could get through, and that's when I learned about it. I learned the T9 stuff...and moved up from there.
I prefer most of my weekday communications to be email or txt, but everything has its place. I find it is much easier to communicate with txt...especially when out and about, say in a bar where you really just can't hear well, and I don't wanna be shouting over the phone and annoying those around me, a txt gets through quicker and more efficiently and doesn't annoy those around you who have no interest in your conversations.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Adults includes age 18+.
I'm absolutely positively certain that skews the average heavily. I used to pissed when I got *one* text message a month, but now that I have a smart phone with free text messages, I find them to be more convenient than actual calls since I don't have to worry about interrupting meetings or having a phone go off in a class. Plus they can ignore me if they don't want to deal with it right away and call back later.
The only reason this happens is because I have a lot of friends in the 18-25 demographic (although I'm not in that demographic anymore). I'm a little too old for the text messaging trend, and only started on the tail end because about half of my friends use it nearly exclusively.
You get SPAM ads via text messages!?!?
Wow...never heard of that...how did they get your number? Isn't it illegal to send ads that way since it costs you money (much like the ban on spam on fax machines)?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
60wpm is the world record for using Swype. 50wpm is manageable for mere mortals however.
There's one aspect that really needs change in the US. When the cellular system is at capacity (say, during a disaster when people seem to think that calling to find out if Aunt Em is okay is more important than leaving capacity open for victims to call the authorities to report that they're trapped under rubble), I'd like to see voice calls severely restricted. Allow voice calls out of the disaster area, and restrict everyone else to texting ONLY.
I DON'T get the importance of texting for purely social (as in "sooo bored, sumbody txt me!") reasons. Kids who are texting out of boredom really need to get a life.
What if they're not allowed? e.g. they're at school, or not meant to be "talking" to X, or supposed to be asleep. Or if you meant they should speak face-to-face, then the same plus not being allowed out of the house (for whatever reason).
I've done "sooo bored" texting, but nowadays it's because I'm on a train and I'm bored. Texts are easier than voice for this: with voice, you'd end up sitting there not talking for 80% of the time, which feels stupid. Texting random crap back and forth feels less awkward.
He did not specify whether the text messages he sends when typing at 60WPM where coherent, readable or contained what would be recognized as words in any language! And what is more amazing...some one sending 500 text messages a day, or that some one actually had 500 worthwhile things to text to some one on any given day? I'll be honest about my own situation, I don't think I could even find enough material to write 500 texts a day even if I included things like "eatn a sndwch" or "coffee made me poop". I just don't there there are that many events in my average day to write a text about.
But don't mind me, I'm kind of a Luddite when it comes to these things.
The 500 text messages in a day will start from "Hey baby, what are you wearing right now?" and ends up with getting laid later in the night :P
What's this Texting?
Is a Cell phone something new for criminals and they've placed phones in the cells now? Damn I got to get a better defender or commit a more important crime to get me one of them.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Adults more likely to have a job than kids...we bring you this shocking story at 11.
I get a whole bunch from system reports, and then set up a script on my n900 to send one every minute that way i forget how much at&t fucks me over. from people? naw i aint got no friends gotta keep the /. tradition alive
that that many teen ( products of our modern educational system run by and for teachers ) couls spell
Did your Porsche Cayenne Turbo (the V8) survive the flooding? I know that's what your username means.
Actually, I know you don't have a Porsche Cayenne. I know you USED TO HAVE A PORSCHE THOUGH! You told me once.
I work in wireless, so the results of this don't surprise me at all. I personally don't txt that much (pin, bbm and email on the other hand...)...
Back on topic though. I recently had a customer who was looking for a new phone for her 15 year old daughter, who had literally worn out the blackberry 8800 that I sold them a few years back,
Upon taking a quick look at the daughter's usage, because mom had asked if there was any way they could save some money, I was astonished to find out that she had a total of 18,000 text messages sent/received in a single month. 600 a day, or about 25 an hour.
I have no idea how this is possible, and when I called the dealer support group to make a few changes to her plan to save mom some cash, the rep I spoke to looked at usage as well and confirmed that she averages 15K messages per month, and has done up to 28K messages in the summer months. Bulk sending the same message to all of her friends at the same time HAS to be a part of it.
I'll be interested to see if she has discovered Rogers new "Extreme Text" and what she can do with that once she sets up a couple of distribution lists.
I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off...
An email sent using a phone would be similarly brief.
Heh. If it can't be said with quill and parchment, then it isn't worth saying.
Sage I stood as I awaited thee, and
Awaiting the tardy Greyhound bus to Widgiemooltha
While frittering my time
Clipping my toenails.
For thus my parody of Milton
Doth merit kicking me in the nuts
Oh wait. That wasn't worth saying either...
I wonder if phones will ever evolve to have email-length texts?
I doubt if the limitation is with the hardware, except in so far as it is designed to work with some political or ideological definition of SMS in GSM or related protocols that limits such messages to 160 characters. But this definition seems more or less arbitrary.
Why did you get rid of your PREVIOUS PORSCHE? Don't tell me... KATRINA, RIGHT?"
The cayenne in my name...reference to the chile pepper....had it a LONG time ago before Porsche put out an SUV.
Personally, I've never owned anything with more than 2x functional seats. The 911 Turbo I used to have technically had 4x seats..but the rear ones were really useless for anything but a couple bags of groceries.
Personally, I'd never want any kind of car bigger than what I've got now....
And yes, Katrina ate the old 'black monster'...but I got a good deal out of it with insurance money.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You seem like a pretty nice guy. Thanks for responding.
No one can type as fast as they can talk, so when you factor in the time it takes for the sender to actually type, actually getting the message takes far longer than just reading it.
No time is wasted waiting for a phone to be answered and then navigating voice mail if it isn't. Unnecessary banter is most often omitted. Often my reply is "OK" and sent with just a few button presses. Both parties do not have to be available. If I receive a text it is "on my phone" (often displayed in full with zero button presses) but a vmail has to be retrieved by dialing out. If you have a thought that can be expressed in a couple hundred characters, then a text may be more time efficient. Also, that text can be copied to multiple recipients far faster than calling several people. We have eliminated the 'hello/goodbye' among trusted parties during communication. Good riddance.
It does...and that one message you thought you sent ends up getting billed as three or four messages. I got bit in the *ss with that about a year and a half ago...went from hardly ever using text to running up about $150 in text-message charges in one month from chatting back and forth with a new girlfriend. The 200-message allotment I paid for was nowhere near adequate for that kind of demand.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
What has the age of the tech/concept got to do with anything?
Telegrams are nothing but millenia old tech without the parchment, which are just improvements upon stone tablets.
False. Telegraphy was the very first medium wherein a message could be transmitted across great distances (thus eliminating things like semaphore and smoke signals from the argument), without the requirement to transport the medium (paper, parchment, person with extraordinary memory for the spoken word, etc.) itself across those same distances. Telephony is the refinement of that technology, wherein the latency introduced by the transcription, encoding and decoding, and quite often the courier, are eliminated. For real-time communications, texting which carries at least some of that latency, is a distant second to speech. If a thing demands immediate attention, discussion, and/or reply, why the hell would I want someone to take the time to type in a text, on a tiny keyboard that makes this task even slower, and then subject myself to the same impediments, when the same process could be handled in a 15 second phone call? I deal with this all the time and the best explanation I can come up with is that the people who do insist on texting in such contexts do it because it's still a novelty and thus, cool/fun.
Let me guess...you have no friends, so they're all either spam, or your mom calling you out of the basement for a meal.
In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.
Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle (1863)
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
>>>It does...and that one message you thought you sent ends up getting billed as three or four messages.
Beat me to it. Hopefully the iPhone has a method to limit text messages to standard SMS length (160?). My phone charges 15 cents per text, so a long message broken into 4 parts would be 60 cents just like that. It would be cheaper to voicecall.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
200 texts a day is 6,087.5 texts per month. If you have a Verizon Wireless plan called "Nationwide Talk", which does not include allotted texts but does charge you $0.20 per incoming or outgoing text, then that would cost $1,217.50 per month, or $14,610 per year. Huh.
Here is VZW's description of that per text charge from their site:
Text Messaging
Fun, easy way to stay in touch. TXT Messaging is a two-way text messaging service. Send and receive text messages of up to 160 characters right on your two-way messaging-capable phone. $0.20 for messages received and $0.20 for messages sent. Bundle plans also available. Sending and receiving text messages does not deduct from a calling plan's airtime allowance.
Picture/Video Messaging
It's fun & easy to share life's most memorable moments with your friends and family. Send and receive picture messages to other Verizon Wireless camera phone customers or virtually any email address. $0.25 for sent and received picture/video messages. Bundle plans also available. Sending and receiving picture/video messages does not deduct from a calling plan's airtime allowance.
Sure if you're in a situation where a response needs to be immediate, but outside of work I don't think such situations occur, or at least they should not be occurring if you are organised. And actually for very small updates texting is great and like I said, doesn't interrupt you or your friends unnecessarily if you're busy with some other activity. Phoning can take ages, especially if the person on the other end is busy and it goes to voicemail, etc. It's nothing to do with novelty and all about convenience. Phone calls and people walking up to my desk and asking inane questions are the bane of my existence, especially when I'm trying to code..
which is totally what she said
They had their reasons.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Troll...?
Obviously reception is not so good under the bridge ... why else would anyone only send and receive 10 texts a month
My theory about why the usage is so high, is that this demographic is treating SMS just like an instant messenger. There is probably lots of low-content back-and-forth chatter that the older generation would probably structure differently since they are more likely consider the cost per message.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers
Tru
Sent from my iPhone
No one can type as fast as they can talk
True, many of us type faster, and read faster, so text can improve the speed of communication. Notice that I only said speed, not effectiveness, since there is no visual/aural feedback.
I'm the father of a 19 yr old, who essentially refuses to call her parents (from an out-of-state college), but will respond to texts all day, so I've adapted to improve the lines of communication with her. There was a very interesting and enlightening article in the Washington Post just about a month ago (link below) on the generational differences regarding use of the phone vs. text. According to it, while most of us older Boomers think the youngsters are just being rude, not answering our calls or voicemails, the kids feel that calls are an imposition on their time, and maybe even rude. When I shared that article with my daughter, it was helpful to us to discuss these views, and how to better our own communications.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/07/AR2010080702848.html
Just another day in Paradise