Sunday, February 15, 2009

OC Register: My daughter racked up 14,528 text messages in one month

"OMG!!!
This isn't exactly proud papa news: My daughter, Reina, who recently turned 13, just racked up 14,528 text messages in one month.
Thank God she's too young to drive.
Given that she's had a cell phone for less than six months, and she is supposed to share the phone with her 14-year-old brother (and use it mainly for emergencies) — well, I'm speechless.
Or should I say, textless?
Her mother, Manako, recently got the phone bill from AT&T. Only 23 pages of the bill came with the bill mailed to her home in Lake Forest.
Manako went online and looked at the PDF version of the bill. The PDF file, covering the period from Nov. 27 to Dec. 26, totaled 440 pages.
OK, the bill included charges for two other phones, including one belonging to Reina's 22-year-old sister, Hana, who accounted for a comparatively modest 7,101 text messages during the same period. Older sister Marina, 24, accounted for a measly (whew!) 700.
But still…A 440-page phone bill? Thankfully, Manako signed up all of them for unlimited texting.
If not, the 20 cents per text for Reina would have totaled $2,905.60.
That's a lot of house chores.
•••
I'm no math whiz, but I did some quick calculations on Reina's thumb-numbing total.
Assuming my daughter slept an average of eight hours during the billing period (she usually sleeps more), that works out to 484 text messages a day — or a text message every two minutes she was awake.
Could AT&T have made some mistake?"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm 14, and that wouldnt surprise me at all. My parents personally dont let me text, but most of my grade does, and it's insane how much they text.