It's a sign of the times -- cell phone users are now texting more than they are talking.
According to a survey released by Nielsen Mobile, U.S. cell phone users sent and received an average of 357 text messages per month for the second quarter of 2008.
That's compared to 65 text messages a month during the first quarter of 2006.
As expected, teens are texting more than adults; they tend to send and receive more than 1700 texts a month.
For some of those teens, it’s almost like an addiction.
Troy Solomon says he’d consider himself a “textaholic” – during a long distance relationship last year, Solomon says he exchanged about 5,000 text messages with his girlfriend each month.
The national average per month is a far lower than that, but experts predict teens aren't too far off from reaching that number on a monthly basis.
Source: 9wsyr.com
http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=538dcd23-3979-4daf-ab11-a11edb147768
Does this mean the art of conversation will be lost within a generation? I'm not sure. I am sure that teens are texting. My friend Bear, a senior in high school, told me the other day he would rather text than talk on the phone. It seems this is kind of a communication management skill. He can keep what he wants to say short and sweet and not get caught up in a long conversation. He's in control. There is something appealing about this. Don't get me wrong though, Bear can talk up a storm in person. He's a great conversationalist. So, there's no lack of ability on his part, but texting makes managing his communication easier. And, it seems to be the wave of the future, even for us late-adapting adults.
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