Posted on 10/14/2009 12:45:41 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Twice a year, the organization representing the wireless industry puts out a bunch of facts and figures on how much we're using our phones in the U.S., and each time, I can't help but marvel at the results.
The big number this time around, according to the CTIA: In the past six months alone, Americans sent an estimated 740 billion text messages, which comes out to about 4.1 billion messages each day.
Put another way: That's 11.7 text messages a day for every man, woman, and child in the country. (Of course, the average American teen can fire off 11 text messages in the time it takes you to read this paragraph.)
Or, how about this: An SMS has a maximum capacity of 160 characters, so let's say (for the sake of example) that your average text message is about 80 characters long. And let's assume that your average novel contains about 100,000 words, and each word has about five letters.
So ... assuming all that (and keeping in mind that my math is a little shaky), we here in the States are writing the equivalent of about 656,000 books—all via SMS—every 24 hours. At that rate, we could match the entire catalog of the entire New York Public Library system (which holds about 20.4 million books) in a little over a month. Amazing ... although whether you'd really want to read all those SMS books is another question.
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.yahoo.com ...
Interesting statistics, although the average text message is nowhere NEAR 80 characters long.
A friend’s 14 year old daughter did about 20% of that total.
I text a lot for work, usually to tell the day crew what time they need to be in in the morning. It is easier to send a text out to four people at once than to call (and disturb) four people separately.
Hey, those 'texting' with a cellphone are the Luddites.
Think about it for a while...
yackety yack!
I think I heard of a door lock that you can text from your cellphone to open it. I don’t know why you couldn’t eventually text your television and other gadgetry.
bttt
I hate when people are “texing” while they are driving
I started texting for the same reason. Calling someone means interrupting them. I find it’s easier to text and wait for them to call or text me. Esp when someone is going thru tough times, you can send a text of encouragement and let them text back or call when they are ready. I also use it to keep my small Bible study group together.
I use text at work for the same reasons. More or less a quickie email while mobile. Much handier than phone calls that one party is too busy to complete, voice mail or pink phone messages.
10% of those text messages were done on the road by people in front of me.
Yeah, and some of them even go through on the same day. I know someone who got a dozen of them in one day. The oldest was over a week old. Instant messaging, what a deal.
That’s not a flaw in text messaging, that’s a flaw in the provider’s “service.” That’s never happened to me.
Great stuff. I use texting when I need to communicate with my sons while they’re in school. They’re allowed to have cell phones, but not to use them in class. They can check for messages between classes and I don’t disrupt anything or get them in trouble with my messages. I’ve been alerted to quite a few missing lunches, gym uniforms or changes to after-school plans.
My Granddaughter is responsible for another 20% of the 4 billion.
I know that.
Verizon bought out my Alltel. This is a new experience for us, too.
Well, not controlling the TV via texts per se, but over in England it’s gotten to where nearly every show on TV has a stupid banner along the bottom portion telling viewers to text their vote on some inane poll, only a pound and a half per vote!
I know we have that here for crap like American Idol, but this was on station after station regardless of what kind of show. And it was at least 4 years ago, so I’m sure it’s gotten worse.
It makes sense for stuff like MTV where you could let people just vote round the clock on what video they want to see next (although that’s got to kill the variety, and I certainly wouldn’t pay for the privilege), but this was like stupid 3 option opinion polls on random stations where they’d show the results and immediately throw up another one, collecting piles of money and permanently wasting a chunk of the screen.
It seems to me that the only type of people who’d do this are the illiterates without the credit for real cell plans who’d rapidly deplete their prepaid. How do you sustain that business model?
charge you a quid and a half for the privilege of casting one vote on an inane poll?
we got to figure out how to do this in the usa. a very common practice here is for cash register receipts to bug you to log in to their web site and tell you what you think of the store, and you might win a prize!
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