Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tlk 2 me, in 160 characters or less please

OMG, teens like 2 TXT a lot. More than half of all teens text on a daily basis, according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The average teen sends and/or receives 50 texts per day and more than a third of them top triple digits each day, according to a story in The San Francisco Chronicle. My 15-year-old son helps skew the numbers upward, sending and receiving thousands of texts each month. As of this evening, he has sent or received 7,601 messages since last month's bill. When I heard that number I wanted to LOL. It hasn't been a month since that last bill, so he's averaging at least 253 texts per day. Assuming he is awake 15 hours per day, that's an average of 16 per hour or .28 per minute. I hardly have .28 thoughts per minute throughout the day, much less .28 things I want to text to or receive from someone. But that's the dominant form of communication for today's teens. If I want to reach my children to tell them or ask them or remind them of something, more often than not I'll send them a text. My wife and I communicate by text if we're otherwise occupied. Even my parents, who are retired, are texting machines. It's new the way to send birthday wishes and grocery lists. It's a great way to tell my baseball team about rainouts. Forget sending out invitations to a party. I'll send a text. If a person is not a close enough acquaintance to be listed on my cell phone, they probably won't be on my invite list. 2 bad 4 them, I guess.

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