As the parent of a teenage daughter, I am curious how it is possible for someone to have over 14,000 text messages in a month. What makes this more challenging is that she cannot text message while she is at her high school. In addition she participates in a dance company where she dances 3 hours a day during the week, almost every Saturday and occasionally on Sunday’s.
Last month my daughter had 14,593 messages on her Samsung A737 phone. The 14,593 messages is equivalent to about 486 messages a day, based on a 30 day month. I do not know how this is possible given her schedule with high school and dance. When I get home from work I have trouble watching one hour worth of TV. Do you have teenagers that like to text message?
tkharmonic says:
November 5, 2009 at 12:02 am
My son is not a teenager, but I would still like to comment that teenagers are texting differently than most adults do. They text frequent, short messages, often expressing only one thing at a time. I think many of the total text messages are U2, lol, wtf, tmi, OMG, brb, cyl8r, ttyl…think of how many texts it would take to have anything like a real conversation? Also, they’re often having these same conversations with 3-5 other people.
Personally, I think it’s better for teens to have real telephone conversations with their friends where they can hear vocal clues and have more of an emotional connection with their friends than trying to decide exactly what someone means by IYKWIM, but I’m old so what do I know?
WAMS says:
November 5, 2009 at 7:40 am
Keep in mind that the total count will include any messages received also. If she is hooked into Facebook, for instance, and has her friends’ updates set to go to her phone, that can generate a lot of messages. Same with any automated services for which she may have signed up.
Becky says:
November 5, 2009 at 11:20 am
We went to “unlimited” the month my eldest hit 3,000, and I’ve never counted since. I’d be too discouraged, thinking, “That’s time they could be studying….or cleaning their rooms…or….”
Stephanie says:
November 5, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Michael,
I spend every minute of my spare time reading every teenagers text messages in their phones! I’ll snatch their phones aways and start scrolling through them. Their eyes get all big and they get all defensive with the “Hey you can’t do that”- “pishhhh YES I CAN” I would reply! This is how I police my own kids and all my friends teenagers as well. So as you can imagine! I DO A LOT OF READING! LOL
Elissa says:
December 3, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I don’t think that I’ll ever understand it either, and I’m a teen myself. All I can do is wait and hope that get out of school so I can find some practical people that hate useless conversation as much as I do.