Teens Texting Even More Than Before
Texting has far outstripped face-to-face communication, cellphone calls and all other ways teens communicate with their friends outside of the classroom, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.
Texting has been widely popular among teenagers for some time, but the survey shows that its use has grown dramatically even in the past year. Fifty-four percent of teens said they texted friends daily when the survey was conducted in September–up from just 38 percent in early 2008. Other types of communication remained about the same over time; 38 percent of the kids said they called friends on their cellphones, and 33 percent said they talked with them face to face.
Half of teens send at least 50 texts a day, with girls between the ages of 14 and 17 averaging 100 messages a day. “My parents will kind of joke about it. I think my last phone’s bill had like altogether 3,000 text messages and they were like, ‘How do you even do that?’” said one high-school girl in the study.
