875 Text Messages a Day!

[Dixie Luvr 98]

My question exactly. That is absurd and the LAST thing I would be doing is getting unlimited texting so she can continue to do it! How about taking the phone away from her? Trust me, she'll survive without it.

Of course she would. I took it away from her for a month last fall over some "attitude issues"

 

[connorlevismom]

The only thing I would really worry about is if she is doing it during class or something. Then it would not be cool with me. But if she has unlimited texting and is not doing it at times she should not, I don't see the big deal.

Just a disclaimer - I have a 5 year old so have not hit this stage yet.

Kristine

 

[mtdevine615]

She's got mine beat also. She does around 3000 texts a month and about 300 - 500 minutes. She's a great kid so it's not a problem as long as her grades are good and they always are. Darn if I know how she does it.

 

[NotUrsula]

That's 36.4 per hour, 24/7, if my math is accurate. (15,743 texts / 18 days = 874.6 per day / 24 hours = 36.4 per hr.)

Assuming that she got 6 hours of sleep each day, it's really more like 48 per hour, every waking minute of every day. I don't see how she could manage that unless she was also doing it in class at least some of the time.

I'm thinking that a hard rain is about to fall on the OP's daughter.

 

[Frankiesmom]

Why do you feel bad? I have a DD 16 who averages between 8000-14000 a month. She is also a good student and is responsible. We have unlimited texting and I guess that if her grades were slipping etc. then I'd have a reason to complain; but as it stands now-I don't.

 

[clutter]

My daughter and I have been arguing about this. She thinks nothing of texting me at any hour of the morning or night if she can't sleep. Even when I reply, "I am SLEEPING," she keeps at it.

My dd gets texting in June. However, my phone stays in my purse downstairs, so I won't have to worry about that!!!!

 

[connorlevismom]

Don't any of you guys remember being a teenaged girl?? I used to spend every waking moment that I was not at school on the phone. HOURS AND HOURS! And that was when we did not have call waiting and I am SURE people were trying to get through constantly.

Texting is the same thing to me only they are not actually "talking".

Kristine

 

[ICF]

That is what my 16-year old daughter is averaging I was checking the account online today and saw 15,743 texts 18 days into the billing cycle.

That's pretty impressive....since assuming she can't text while in school-- (I know some schools ban phones and such).....that's 73 texts an hour if she is awake and not in school for 12 hours a day.

If we assume 7 hours a day for school and 7 hours a day sleeping, that only leaves her 10 hours a day to text, which works out to 87.5 text / hour or about 1.5 texts / minute every minute of the 10 hours she's awake and not in school.

 

[OhMari]

You say she averaged 875 text messages a day,
that is 36.5 messages and hour
which means she is sending a text every other minute.
How many hours of sleep does she get.

I know a mom that called their cell company.
Their dd had so many text's they figured she had
to be sending a text every second which is impossible.
They challenged their phone/cell company.
U.S. Cellular dropped the charges and they switched to a text plan.
So it makes you wonder if your child really did do all of these texts.


Don't feel bad,
we went to unlimited text messages 2 years ago.
At first it was $20 and for some reason and now it is $25.
I have 3 older college kids on my plan, and I think I saw 3,000 messages
on our phone bill.

 

[TheZue]

You say she averaged 875 text messages a day,
that is 36.5 messages and hour
which means she is sending a text every other minute.

Most American plans count the incoming as well so she might be GETTING a lot of texts too. To be fair I'd half the number. Yes she's texting a lot but that won't all be outgoing.

 

[SandrA9810]

your texting includes being on an instant messanger.
Kari's been really down on me lately cause I keep texting every one. But i can't help it. And it's easy to keep a conversation going that way, cause you can respond when you have the time for it. Talking requires you to talk right then and there when you probably don't have the time to, or the privacy to do it at that moment. It also counts when you recieve a text to. so getting a text and replying to it is 2 messages.

I use predictive text, which is really bad cause i'm fast at it. I'm not to shabby at the other way. i wish I had a full keyboard, but 9 keys help when you only have one hand to do it.

We have over 3,200 in rollover minutes between 4 lines, with 750mins a month. But after going over my 400 texts a month regularly (generally just a few, so the overage charge wasn't too bad), kari finally let me upgrade to unlimited.

Just remember if your kid starts going way over your current plan, you can always call and they can upgrade it for that month.
Like I realized I was at 700 text last month, so I called and changed it to unlimited and I didn't get charged for being over 300 text. I'm already at 125 for just 2 days.

 

[eduk8r26]

Kids do text in school. They are so good at it, they don't have to look at the phone. They hold it under their desk and text. I can't believe how fast they are. My niece texted me an answer to something before I had even finished sending the question, almost.

 

[NotUrsula]

I know a mom that called their cell company. Their dd had so many text's they figured she had to be sending a text every second which is impossible.
They challenged their phone/cell company. U.S. Cellular dropped the charges and they switched to a text plan. So it makes you wonder if your child really did do all of these texts.

True, something to check into. I send a couple of texts per week, but for two months my phone bill was showing several texts originating from my number each night between the hours of 2-5 am. DH and I are not up then, and neither are my children; the phones are charging in a kitchen cabinet at that time of night. I challenged them and they removed them, so if the log shows any that she really could not have sent, that might make a difference.

PS: Yes, the total would include incoming, but she's presumably reading those, so they are still claiming her time and attention. That's a LOT of time spent on the phone. I did talk on the phone when I was a teen, but not much -- my Mom simply would not allow it. I had an extension in my room once the extra charge for those was lifted, but Mom made it clear that she reserved the right to listen in on and join any conversation I had. She did it, too, at random, which kind of had a chilling effect.

 

[Dixie Luvr 98]

That's 36.4 per hour, 24/7, if my math is accurate. (15,743 texts / 18 days = 874.6 per day / 24 hours = 36.4 per hr.)

Assuming that she got 6 hours of sleep each day, it's really more like 48 per hour, every waking minute of every day. I don't see how she could manage that unless she was also doing it in class at least some of the time.

I'm thinking that a hard rain is about to fall on the OP's daughter.

That's pretty much my math too.
She swears she isn't doing it in class and phones are banned at school. She would be risking getting it confiscated if she was.

She doesn't have her license yet, but will be getting it soon. I do worry that if she is texting that much that she'll be tempted. That will absolutely cost her the license and the phone.

I'm also old-school enough to think that her AP classes deserve her full attention when she is studying.

 

[SandrA9810]

it's like typing on a keyboard, once you know what you're doing, you don't have to look. Predictive text is a bit trickier because you have to know which order the words fall under, and how many times to hit the * key. But after a while that's easy to figure out.

You gotta remember too, if she's at 16,000 texts, that means she's sending out 8,000 and recieving 8,000 if she replies once to every text recieved. And I even end up with texts from ATT and stuff periodicaly that I don't pay attention to. That still counts as one. And look at how many stores do promos of saying text "this" to 123456 and get a free song or something. And texting in for American Idol. Those all count...

 

[disykat]

Don't any of you guys remember being a teenaged girl?? I used to spend every waking moment that I was not at school on the phone. HOURS AND HOURS! And that was when we did not have call waiting and I am SURE people were trying to get through constantly.

Texting is the same thing to me only they are not actually "talking".

Kristine

I was not ALLOWED to talk on the phone that much. I think the OP is doing the right thing, squeching it.

 

[SandrA9810]

So she's sending and recieving 1.5 text every minute... gotta look at the other half. And texting is generally shorter than a sentance... most the time phones don't like sending out long texts and so you have to send out two or three to finish what you're saying... or the phone will do it for you which is highly annoying when recieving the long text.

 

[kissy]

WOW! I thought I was bad. I can honestly say that to this day my BFF and I still talk on the phone every day for at least 2 hours and sometimes it's all conversations about nothing but we still do it! haha! She's the reason I make sure I have unlimited long distance.

 

[NYDisGuy]

Most American plans count the incoming as well so she might be GETTING a lot of texts too. To be fair I'd half the number. Yes she's texting a lot but that won't all be outgoing.

I was gonna say this. She's not sending 15,000 text's, it's definitley a combination of both so you can at least cut that number in half.

 

[Todd&Copper]

She must have very strong thumbs.