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California Teen Texts Too Much

Categories: Teens & tweens, Weird But True, Gadgets & Tech

Hands texting on a cell phone.After more than a quarter of a century as a computer programmer, I'm a pretty fast typist. At least, I used to think so, until I read about Reina Hardesty. The California thirteen-year-old managed to send more than fourteen thousand messages in a single month. Yes, you read that right and yes, it is possible -- her dad, Greg, pulled out the calculator to check after receiving the bill.

It turns out Reina averaged nearly five hundred messages a day or one message every two minutes of every waking hour. The bill was over four hundred pages long. When asked who she was texting, Reina replied "Well, a lot of my friends have unlimited texting. I just text them pretty much all the time." The number was higher than normal -- even for her -- last month because "it was winter break and I was bored," she said.

According to a Nielsen study, the average teen sends less than two thousand messages a month -- less than sixty per day on average. Luckily, Reina's plan includes unlimited text messages; her dad calculated that at twenty cents a message he would have been looking at a nearly three thousand dollar bill.

My wife and I occasionally send each other text messages but it would be unusual if we hit the teen average of sixty messages in a month, let alone in a day. I suspect that fourteen thousand messages is more of a lifetime goal for us rather than a monthly high. I just hope Reina's thumbs don't fall off.

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