I guess you could say it was an understatement that Greg Hardesty, a newspaper reporter with the Orange County Reporter, was shocked when he got his most recent phone bill.
It was 440 pages long. Four-hundred-and-forty pages long!
He quickly found out the reason for such a lengthy bill. Between November 27 and December 26 of last year, his 13-year-old daughter Reina sent a mind-boggling 14,528 text messages! Fortunately, Mr. Hardesty has unlimited text messages; otherwise, his bill would have been $2,905.60.
Don’t today’s teens have something better to do. Here’s an idea: talk to each other directly or pick up the phone! It’s no wonder our kids’ social skills are regressing. I, like Mr. Hardesty, am a parent of a daughter in this age bracket, and let me tell you something: If my daughter (who text messages a lot) sent 10% of the messages that young Miss Hardesty did, she would be separated from her phone for a very long period of time!
The excessive text messaging must run in the family, because Reina’s older sister Hana sent out 7,100 text messages of her own during the same period.
To put these amazing stats into perspective, the average teen (ages 13-17) racks up 1,742 text messages a month … and even that number is staggering to me.
Oh, by the way, Reina is now not allowed to text message after dinner.
TNT (‘Til next time), TTYL (Talk to you later!)
