According to a recently released study by Pew Internet, thirty-one percent of Americans would rather communicate through texting on a mobile phone rather than speaking with someone over the same phone. Young adults are the most common group that prefers this method of communication and the average of the survey group was about 110 texts per day while the median of that group clocked in at about 50 texts per day. One in ten young adults between the ages of 18 to 24 report that they send or receive at least 200 text messages per day (approximately 6,0o0 messages per month). The next age group, 25-34 year olds, typically average about 42 texts per day and this trend continues to decrease down to about 5 texts a day for the 65 and older group.
Specific to ethnicity, African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to use texting, the median being about 20 text messages per day. Regarding household income and education levels, households making less than $30,000 a year where most likely to send text messages as well as people who didn’t complete high school. People that send or receive more than 51 text messages per day overwhelmingly preferred to be contacted though texting. Only 27 percent of that group prefer a voice call. However, 70% of the group that receive less than 10 texts per day prefer speaking with someone over the phone over trading text messages.
This data corresponds to an earlier study performed by Lab 42 that asked 500 teenagers about texting habits. Over 70 percent of that group preferred communicating through text message over a phone call and over 34 percent of that group spoke on the phone more than 15 minutes per day. Over 50 percent of teenagers use text messages to send pictures multiple times per month and they typically text while at home or browsing the computer. When it comes to apps, teenage boys primarily use smartphones mostly to play games, while teenage girls use smartphones for browsing social networks like Facebook.
