honey the kids won't speak...

I keep hearing reference to american teenagers doing over 1000 messages a month. I kept readily dismissing it as hyperbole. Other work mates also could not believe it.

In the carpool this morning I was relaying this information to a teenager girl's dad. He was not surprised at all by the statistic of 1,000 messages a month on average and said he had seen a room full of girls sitting together texting their friends and each other for an hour without a word being said.

Nielsen puts the number at 1700 messages per month for 13-17 years olds.

So I've done a quick search and there are a number of different studies that do suggest 1,000-2,000 messages per month is the average. And an average of 1,500 messages per month in Australia and New Zealand for the same age group.

That's an average of receiving or sending one text message every 10-20 minutes of their waking hours (assuming they sleep 9 hours a day).

This young lass did 14,528 text messages a month: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/13/text_message_marathon/

"mum y r u gvng me a hrd time?"

"coz u neva spk 2 me nemore!"