To show just how much the trend is increasing is seen with these figures. In 2006, the typical American cell phone user would use around 65 text messages a month. In just two years this number jumped to 357 messages. This is a 450% increase of the usage of text messaging features on cell phones.
According to the survey, Americans sent more than 75 billion text messages in June of 2008. This number accounts for average 2.5 billion messages sent across the United States. In more recent studies, Americans has reached 1 trillion text messages in 2009.
More importantly, who are the ones texting? Carriers and surveys have seen it is coming from teens between the ages of 13-17. This demographic sends nearly 1,800 text messages a month. Even kids under the age of 12 are texting, some on average of 428 messages per month. These are staggering numbers that show a significant change in the ways our young people communicate. This has even led cell phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint to demand cell phones with QWERTY keyboards from their manufactures. Go into a retail store and see how many phones with keyboards.
I believe there is much more to this phenomenon than just increased numbers. I think this increase of text messaging has much to say about our society in the United States, and I don't think its a great one.
First off, its time to set that phone down and focus on those who are in the room with us. Its already the case that the numbers of families who have dinner together around a table have fallen. Now the remaining precious time we have is being given up to talk to our friends about the latest gossip. Gossip in my opinion is pointless anyway, and is only further a detriment to our psyche through texting.
Another place people text is in a classroom setting. Cell phones are almost as ubiquitous in a large class as cigarette lighters used to be at concerts. Dividing attention away from learning the many tools we need to do well on that next midterm or final exam, not to mention have a successful career.
Texting is even something that is dangerous at times. Take this girl for exam in New York. she fell into a pot hole because she was more focused on her text message than what was in front of her. A more common place text messaging is becoming further dangerous is when it is done behind the wheel. In studies, it is worse to text while driving than it is to be intoxicated. The reason behind this is that people are associated not with what is in the car or what is in front of them, but rather their minds are in a second world with whatever is being said in their text message. This has led many states, including my home state to ban any use of cell phones in a car by the driver.
Now the question is, why do people text so much? Of course people like to talk, we are social beings and sometime we just wanna let our friends know the score of the game, or invite them to a coffee at Starbucks. But, is it because it is so easy to do or inexpensive (compared to phone calls) ? Maybe so, but I think it is a part of something much more important and secretly devious. That is our ever increasing nature of the speedy life. People need to be in multiple places, and need quickness in how we communicate. But those are just two pieces of a more important part of society. That is the demand society puts on each individual to accomplish more than the day before. More needs to be learned and more needs to be achieved, all of which has more competition and has higher standard of scrutiny because of all the competition. Text messaging is a tool that was designed to make things easier in life, but as easier equates to doing more, the tool that used to make things easier is over used, which begs to question what will be the next tool to make texting easier?
The final part of this blog I will touch on, is at what point will this be too much? When will we be too stressed out? What is the human breaking point? I think we are running, not walking to an explosion of our minds.
