Did you know that the average American teenager exchanges 3,146 text messages per month?
I get emails from Nielsen about their newest studies and research. This week they sent and interesting little tidbit from their 2009 research about texting. Nielsen is no joke. They analyze more than 40,000 mobile bills every month gathering data. Here's a chart comparing the growth of texting over the past few years between kids under 12 (the blue line) and those age 13-17 (the red line).
In Nielsen's 1/27/10 update, Roger Entner writes this:
The anecdotes documenting the love affair between teenagers and texting are countless. Many parents can attest that their offspring text rather than talk, even when they sit next to each other in the back of the car. Their children text in the morning before they brush their teeth and continue late into the night with the last text messages, also called SMS, sneaked in under the covers right before they close their eyes to sleep. Until now, there has been very little firm data available about how pervasive texting has actually become among the under-aged.
He goes on to break down the 3,146 messages per month that kids are using.
- that's more than 10 messages every hour of the month that they are not sleeping or in school
- even the under 12 segment are sending 1,146 messages per month which is four text messages per waking hour that they are not in school
Read the whole report here.