Sept. 23, 2008
Text Messaging Explodes In America
Survey: Texting Now More Popular Than Calling, With Messaging Up 450% Over Past Two Years
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Photo
(AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
For the second quarter of 2008, U.S. mobile subscribers sent and received on average 357 text messages per month, compared with making and receiving 204 phone calls a month, according to Nielsen. The new statistic is a clear indication that Americans have jumped onto the SMS text bandwagon.
In the first quarter of 2006, Americans sent and received 65 text messages per month. The number of messages sent and received today has increased 450 percent. But even though people are texting more, it doesn't mean that they've stopped talking on the phone. According to Nielsen, the number of phone calls that people make and receive each month has remained relatively flat over the past two years.
The wireless industry's trade association, CTIA, recently noted the explosion in texting in its own report. It recently reported that for the month of June, American cell phone subscribers sent about 75 billion SMS text messages, averaging about 2.5 billion messages per day. This represents an increase of 160 percent over the 28.8 billion messages reported in June 2007.
Short Message Service, or SMS, text messaging first became popular in Europe and Asia, because it was much cheaper to send short text messages than make an actual phone call. In countries such as the Philippines, the cost of sending one text is less than a penny. And in Europe where cell phone users are still penalized with high roaming charges between countries, texting is still a more economical form of communication.
But in the U.S. texting is proving to be a cash cow for carriers. Over the past two years, the cost of sending and receiving individual text messages without a special text message package has gone up 100 percent with individual text messages costing 20 cents per message. Carriers are now offering unlimited cell phone texting plans that cost an additional $20 a month, which makes sending texts more affordable for heavy texters.
The surge in text messaging is being driven by teens 13 to 17 years old, who on average send and receive about 1,742 text messages a month. Teens also talk on the phone, but at a much lower rate, only making and receiving about 231 calls per month. The report even suggests that tweens or kids under the age of 12 are also heavy text users, averaging about 428 messages per month.
By Marguerite Reardon
Copyright ©2008 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved.




BRB
I prefer texting over having to listen to a bazillion meaningless-to-me conversations any day!
The only place for "privacy" anymore is on a plane.
I hope the airlines never allow it!
It''s the texting generation%u2014Everyone knows what going on, but nobody is talking.
and MissSuZQ - if it''s meaningless to you then you should bother them with texting either..
Let''s keep the lines of verbal communication open - it is so much more satisfying
At 20 cents per msg, that''s $384.40 per teen per month on mindless drivel. That''s over 4,600 dollars per child per year! Parents: take those cell phones away from your children!
Hmmm, given the current uprise in teen impregnation rate, all we need now is a device that allows one to type and *ahem* at the same time...
Stop it, it''s a waste of time.
Remember when teenagers were able to leave all that teen angst behind, not to mention a bunch of groveling ne''er do well friends by going away to college. Well now that''s impossible. They sit there building the same moronic MySpace page that they started as a freshman in high school, hence they never grow up until it''s too late to do so!
Verizon is pretty sweet
Posted by talkingham at 05:17 PM : Sep 23, 2008
There is a difference in the two men. Kerry is a cry-baby liberal that is against most kinds of freedoms that our troops have faught for..
Lied about his service record, etc....
No Kerry, in spite of being smeared by republican lies was a hero who saved lives and who saw the absurdity of Vietnam while McCain loved war and got shot down admittedly being a hot shot. I listened to his speech. Now he just lies about the economy and the qualifications of a dog wearing lipstick.
[Posted by hbevis at 05:23 PM : Sep 23, 2008]
what freedoms are those? you mean jurisprudence, innocent until proven guilty, access to an attorney, trial of your peers, elected officials upholding the constitution and the rule of law, the geneva convention, not outing cia operatives, the right to privacy ...
did you mean those rights ... or were you speaking of the right to lie to congress and the american people, the right to wage war under false pretense, the right to torture, the right to wiretap, the right to spy on american citizens, the right to our cia agents who are married to your political critics?
Posted by DoodDad
I disagree. "r u my bff" is a far cry from " are you my best friend forever". You know what I mean. They don''t use proper spelling, grammar, you name it. This generation is becoming a bunch of illiterate twits.
Peace
You make some very good points on this subject. The kids in our area had to rough it after Gustav and entertain themselves the old fashioned way. They discoved the outside world and had a blast. Now they are back to their old routines. It was nice to see the children enjoying chasing lighning bugs, visiting a neighbor, whom they never met before the storm, camping outside in a pup tent because it was cooler outside than inside and just riding their bikes around the neighborhood to have something to do other than play a video game or text their friends.
Our language will endure and evolve. Relax naysayers...
Some of you need toget off your high horse. The old days are over, and they aren''t ever coming back no matter how much you complain about kids today playing video games, texting, talking on the phone, ehatever it may be. The simple fact is you would be doing those things too if you were a child growing up in the modern world.
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by mossz06
September 24, 2008 11:22 PM PDT
- Wow, some of you people are stuck in the past. This is the way the world is moving, either keep up or stick to playing bingo. Get with the times!
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