Survey Finds U.S. Customers Text More than Call

I'm surprised. Three years ago I would have doubted it because airtime has always been so cheap in the US, and personally I like to talk more than text. The only time I text is when I think someone might be asleep so I don't wake them.

 

My wife's started doing it at work since she can't IM at her new job. She doesn't like interrupting people.

 

I'd like to see the age distribution in this survey. I text about 1/10th as much as the average. It's a safe bet that teens and twentysomethings text much more. But did they really sample all age groups equally? The WirelessWeek article doesn't say. Have we caught up to Europe and Asia? Also doesn't say.



SW

 

Current usage in the UK is approx 6.4 billion texts/month, or over 5,000/second, and that figure seems to be constantly rising. In 2007 there were just under 57 billion texts sent in the UK, which works out at just under a thousand texts for each person in the country. The figure for 2008 will probably be quite a bit higher.

 

I don't ever text, or send pix.
100% of my phone usage is voice calls.
Over 800 calls per month totaling more than 10,000 minutes for me on average

Last text I got on my phone was on my birthday, 6 months ago,
since then I've disabled texting on my phone.

 

Wouldn't a better comparison be 'texting conversation' to 'voice conversation'? In a texting conversation you might use 10 texts to get across what could also have been done in 1 call. The bottom line of the statistics might be true but I don't see how they mean anything.

 

Not just one call, but thirty seconds. Think of all the time wasted!

 

If I ever wanted to send texts, I'd use my computer & email.


IMO, A lot more information can go through a phone call, rather than an SMS,
(and they limit how big a text may be, 160 characters).

Also for me, there is a lot more feeling involved with talking, rather than texting.
Sometimes when texting, words can be taken the wrong way.
But the way you say those words in a phone call, can make a difference.

 

I'm with you! Why text and have to type, when the airtime is cheap and/or free. Most people I communicate with are AT&T customers, so the M2M airtime is free. Why pay for a text when calling is free?

Here's my current usage for this month: (billing cycle ends on the 4th)

Rate period / minutes used / minutes available

Anytime / 328 / 222
Nights & Weekends* / 416 / Unlimited
Mobile to Mobile* / 388 / Unlimited
Rollover / 0 / 980

So far this month I have 1,132 minutes used with 7 days left in the billing cycle, and across all 3 lines there are no text messages.

Why type when you can talk?

-Jay

 

It's the opposite here in the UK. Most contracts come with unlimited texts now whereas there is a set allowance of minutes. Not that that has sent texting soaring in my opinion, although almost certainly it will have increased it, since texting was already so popular. Around 70% of the UK market is PAYG so texting is probably more economical for many people who aren't on contract.

 

Well we knew that you were unusual.

That's interesting, especially given that people under 8 and over 80 probably don't have cell phones. I wonder how many of those are marketing messages or spam. If the answer is "not many", then people in the UK text 2 or 3X more than people in the US (except for Charlyee, of course).




SW

 

Well so far this month I have used :


-37 anytime minutes, 64 Night & Weekend,
-1245 M2M and MyCircle
-626 Incoming text messages , 655 outgoing, 4 MMS messages.

And minutes start over October 5th.

Now, on the extreme side is my girlfriend who has used:

-572 anytime, 1513 night & weekend,
-1996 M2M and MyCircle
-3047 Incoming text messages, 3016 outgoing, 6 MMS.

.. and her minutes start over on October 5th also.

We are both the same age (18) and both have Alltel, but she constantly text messages. I would estimate she gets at least one text every few minutes.

 

I text a lot more than I call. It's not even close.

 

I don't know. I have a texter's dream phone, with a big sliding keyboard, and I rarely text. I find it a pain to type on anything smaller than a computer keyboard. Even that gets to me after a while. If I'm IM'ing someone, after 15 minutes or so I usually try to move the conversation to the telephone.

-Jay

 

I seem to recall some study or other that said that around a third to two thirds of British 6 year olds had a mobile phone.