Slashdot Mirror
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."
We're glad you could join us in blindly walking into lamp posts while stumbling and texting down the street.
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?
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.
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$
that addicted to something.
Then again, I use IRC. But, as long as something isn't controlling your life, no harm I guess.
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!
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!
It's a much less intrusive form of communication. I can send you a small bit of info (e.g. meet at xxx at y) without interrupting whatever you are doing at the moment.
A phone call generally takes me 30-60 seconds, plus some waiting for the call to connect. A text is much faster (and can be sent to multiple recipients)
It's much more discreet for the sender (can send text from meeting/class/dinner)
It is a lot like email - but generally more available on phones, and with approximately real-time delivery to the recipient's attention. By comparison, a lot of people might not check their email for hours (or even days) at a time.
For a lot of plans, it is also a lot cheaper than voice calling. (in the uk at least, lots of pretty cheap plans come with effectively unlimited texting)
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
1. You don't have to talk to the person.
2. It allows them time to think and come up with a good response.
3. You don't have to listen to them thinking.
4. It's cheaper.
5. You can send the same text to more than one person.
6. They can reply at their leisure if they are busy.
7. You have a written record of their response.
8. You don't annoy other people by talking (e.g. on a train).
Need more?
Of course there are times when a call is more appropriate, e.g. if you need an instant answer, or want to negotiate something. And 200 texts a day is insane to the point that I don't believe it.
By the time Europe defined and installed a cell network (GSM), America already had a large legacy (AMPS) network that did not support SMS.
It's fire and forget. You don't have the risk of getting sucked into a conversation. It doesn't require that the recieving party be present at the time of sending. It's usually faster to receive than a voicemail.
For example: while snowboarding, if separated, my friends and I usually text each other to say what area/bar we are going to. Service is spotty on the mountain, but sooner or later they go into a spot where the message shows up. Vm doesn't always come through in these conditions, and who wants to pull off hats and goggles when it only takes 3 or four words to get the message across.
I would think Internet based communications are replacing SMS, but even in my example SMS seems to work better as all you need is a gsm signal. Often the Internet doesn't work well when you have a really weak edge signal.