California Teen Texts Too Much

by Roger Sinasohn (Subscribe to Roger Sinasohn's posts) Jan 13th 2009 2:00PM

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

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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Comments (8)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Amy 1-13-2009 @ 2:34PM

I doubt that the teen is sending one message every two minutes. Its more likely that she is sending multiple messages to multiple friends, less often. All the messages still count as one. I could send a message that says, "Hey" to 100 of my closest friends, and the phone company will charge me as 100 messages.

joe 1-21-2009 @ 7:36PM

actually she does im in her class... -__- so i Would KNow

isisaquaria 1-13-2009 @ 5:52PM

It wouldn't be that hard---I had 4000 last month on my phone and my husband almost 7000, my two teens on our plan (daughter and bf) each close to 10,000.

It is like Amy said--one message to multiple people counts each message. Each Bball game is 60 mess of good luck, and 60 congrats for each win, or better luck next time for losses. A tournament on a sat. can easily be 10 games and 600 mess.or more.

My husband txt all the soldiers in his unit with reminders approx 30-45 soldiers all the same mess--he sends wakeup calls during conferences, checks on concerns with personal issues, and just touches base with all his guys at least once a week

hall monitor 1-13-2009 @ 7:55PM

EVERY teen texts too much. This should not be blowing anyone's mind.

Hall Monitor
http://detentionslip.org

yasmingamal 1-14-2009 @ 6:02AM

Before we got married my husband and I spent a couple of months each living in a different country so we texted like crazy it was much cheaper than phone calls. So we did hit around 40 or 50 texts a day easily on most days.

Gigi 1-14-2009 @ 7:44AM

I have sent 600 in a month and im not even a preteen. PARENTS:if u wanna save some money put unlimited texting like my parents did!

paperpenguin69 1-21-2009 @ 1:04AM

Ya that aint really nuthin.....I did 33,000 in one month.....so she still has a way to go...HAHA..Especially to catch the world record of texts in one month...

tim 2-01-2009 @ 1:44PM

my boss's daughter hit over 20 thousand in one month... now that's insane!

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