Teens are the real cash cow for the operators. According to Pew Internet and American Life Project , Cell phone texting has become the preferred channel of basic communication between teens and their friends, with cell calling a close second. The research says three-fourths of young people between the ages of 12 and 17 now own cell phones and of those that do, girls typically send or receive 80 text messages per day and boys, 30 per day. So one in three teens sends more than 100 text message a day, or 3000 texts a month. Wow, that’s an awful lot of messages and definitely more than the amount of mails I send :-). All that operator needs to do is keep the teens happy and the money will follow them. Text messaging has become a big part of teenager’s lives. Around 87 percent of those who text said they sleep with, or next to, their phone.
"Texting is now the central hub of communication in the lives of teens today, and it has really skyrocketed in the last 18 months," Pew researcher Amanda Lenhart said, attributing the rise in part to payment plans that allow unlimited texting.
If you look at the chart below, texting percentage( 54%) is more than social networking, instant messaging, email and voice course calls.
Some interesting statistics:
Teens who have multi-purpose phones are avid users of those extra features. The most popular are taking and sharing pictures and playing music:
• 83% use their phones to take pictures.
• 64% share pictures with others.
• 60% play music on their phones.
• 46% play games on their phones.
• 32% exchange videos on their phones.
• 31% exchange instant messages on their phones.
• 27% go online for general purposes on their phones.
• 23% access social network sites on their phones.
• 21% use email on their phones.
• 11% purchase things via their phones.
For more information, you can download the entire research paper from here( It’s around 168 pages)
