Teen Texting Rates Hit the Stratosphere: Research

Saying that teens loving texting has all the dramatic impact of saying the sun will rise in an easterly direction tomorrow. But new research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project documents the extent of that infatuation, and it’s an impressive passion. Half of all U.S. teens send 50 or more text messages a day, and one out of three sends more than 100 SMS shout-outs daily.

The survey found that while the average teen sent 1,500 text messages per month, a good number exceeded that rate by far, with some 15% of respondents saying they sent 200 texts a day, or 6,000 per month.

Overall the number of teens who SMS at least once every day jumped from 38% in February 2008 to 54% in September 2009. By contrast, only 38% of teens say they use their mobile phones daily for at least one voice call. In fact, text messaging is the group’s channel of choice for communicating with almost everyone, preferred over e-mail, voice calls, instant messaging and face-to-face conversations. The sole exception: parents, who get a phone call before any other kind of message.

Part of what’s driving the explosive growth in teen SMS is a big increase in teen phone ownership. Pew found that about 75% of the 12-17 U.S. age group now owns a cell phone, compared to 45% in 2004. And 72% of teens—or 88% of that mobile-owning group—report using text messaging on any frequency. That’s up from the 51% of teens who texted in 2006.
Another driver is the nature of text-messaging plans today. Fully 75% of teen mobile phone users have an unlimited-texting plan with their carriers. Only 13% pay for each text sent or received, and the remainder have plans that cap their SMS use. That makes a difference in texting activity. Those with unlimited SMS send and receive 70 texts a day on average, compared to 10 a day for teens with limited-use plans and 5 a day for those who pay as they text.

Mobile phones seem be bridging the digital gap for teens. While only 70% of teens from households earning less than $30,000 say they have a computer in the home (compared to 92% in higher income groups), 41% of the teens from those lower-income homes as they access the Web from their phones. This is especially true of black teens (44%) and Hispanic teens (35%); only 21% of white teens go online via mobile phone.

Other factoids from the Pew report:

*Girls text more than boys, to the tune of 80 texts sent and received in a day compared to 30 for their male counterparts.
*69% of teens are on family-plan carrier contracts, so someone else is paying for their mobile activity. Eighteen percent are on pre-paid or pay-as-you-go plans, and 10% have their own cell contracts.
*While 24% of teens say their schools ban all cell phones as academic distractions, 62% say they are permitted to have their phones at school although not in the classroom.
*But kids will be kids: 65% of those whose schools ban mobile phones from the grounds bring them to school anyway, and 58% say they have used those contraband phones to text during class.

The Pew Internet “Teens and Mobile Phones” research was built on phone interviews with a sample of 800 teens 12-17 and their parents between June and September of last year, along with focus groups conducted in June and October 2009.