If you needed more proof that texting is on the rise, here’s a stat for you: the average teenager sends over 3,000 texts per month. That’s more than six texts per waking hour.
According to a new study from Nielsen, our society has gone mad with texting, data usage and app downloads. Nielsen analyzed the mobile data habits of over 60,000 mobile subscribers and surveyed over 3,000 teens during April, May and June of this year. The numbers they came up with are astounding.
The number of texts being sent is on the rise, especially among teenagers age 13 to 17. According to Nielsen, the average teenager now sends 3,339 texts per month.
There’s more, though: teen females send an incredible 4,050 text per month, while teen males send an average of 2,539 texts. Teens are sending 8 percent more texts than they were this time last year.
Other age groups don’t even come close, either; the average 18 to 24-year-old sends “only” 1,630 texts per month. The average only drops with other age groups. However, in every age bracket, the number of texts sent has increased when compared to last year. Texting is a more important means of communication than ever.
In 2008, the main reason anybody got a phone was for safety, even among teenagers. That’s not true anymore. 43 percent of teenagers now say texting is the #1 reason they get a cell phone. Safety is #2 with 35 percent, while 34 percent of teenagers say they get cell phones to keep in touch with friends.
Texting is also supplanting voice calls — 22 percent say SMS is easier than a phone call and another 20 percent say it’s faster. Voice usage has decreased by 14 percent among teens and is decreasing in all age groups under 55. 18 to 24 year olds use the most minutes, but every age group between 18 and 55 talks on the phone more than the average teenager.
While voice may be on the decline, data and app usage is on the rise. According to Nielsen, data usage among teens has quadrupled, from 14 MB to 62 MB per month.
In a role reversal, teen males use more data than their female counterparts: 75 MB vs. 53 MB of data. App and software downloads also increased by 12 percent among teens in the last year.
These stats are eye-popping, but what’s even more amazing is that these numbers only keep rising. Texting, data usage and app downloads are nowhere near their peak, but one has to wonder: how many texts is the average teenager actually capable of sending? What’s the limit?
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(Source: CNN / Mashable)
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6 Responses
Tzvei mohl tzvelif is nisht fihr und tzvantzik. V’hamaivin yovin. HaShem yerachaim. Ignore all the hard-core evidence of the damage, morally and spiritually (pardon the redundancy), caused by misuse/overuse of these devises, but the lack of focus and undivided attention they cause should be enough of a reason to discourage their use in our crowds. Even if we choose secular endeavors and lifestyle over a Torah-based one, has success in any area been achieved without single minded focus and commitment? Nobody can have a meaningful conversation anymore without countless interruptions. Forget the derech eretz issue. It is self destructive as well.
I don’t get what’s so “eye-popping” about this. I’m in the 18-24 age group, and these numbers seem only a little higher than normal. If you counted phone conversations and person-to-person conversations before cell phones evolved, would those numbers also have been eye-popping? One text = one side of a conversation. To have a complete conversation, you need a few of them…
IT is not only teenagers , but adults as well! During daving , on line @ the supermarket , walking down the street , in middle of a conversation w/ someone , DRIVING !!! There is no Kovod Habreous !
What annoys me most of all, more than anything else, is the usage of the cell phone in shuls and the beis medrash. We all know that everyone from least observant to ultra-frum has answered or thought of his/her phone durring davening. Especially durring shmoneh esrei. The vibrate distracts all of our davening.
Eretz Yisroel needs our complete focus durring teffilah.
Dear YWNews- thank you far all your good reporting, but PLEASE change the image above, which shows someone texting behind the wheel. Please don’t do ANYTHING that could possibly be mistaken to consider texting & driving as common or acceptable behavior.
@ #1: first of all, I hope that I you write like that you can say that you yourself do not own a phone….
Can you perhaps point me in the direction of the “hard-core evidence of the damage” caused by cell phones, either morally OR spiritually? Besides, anything that is misused will have negative effects, EVERYTHING, from Torah to deodorant. Should we therefore get rid of it all? Or should we encourage it, but used properly?
How is the lack of ‘focus and undivided attention’ caused by cellphones different that the distraction caused by anything else? Cellphones don’t CAUSE people to be distracted, they allow people who will be distracted to have another item that will distract them. People, not phones, are rude when someone answers a phone call in middle of a conversation. (Guns don’t kill people etc)