http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-40987-145.html

Teen sends 14,528 text messages, dad gets 440 page bill

Silverado (CA) - Greg Hardesty's teenage daughter managed to send 14,528 text messages last month. When he received his 440 page AT&T wireless phone bill, he thought it was a mistake. The dad, age 45, said "First I laughed. I thought 'That's insane. That's impossible.' And I immediate whipped out the calculator to see if it was humanly possible." He found out that it was, but just barely.


Reina, his 13-yr old daughter, would've had to send text message at the rate of 484 per day, or one every two minutes of every waking hour. When the father asked "Who are you texting anyway? Your entire school?" She replied, "A lot of my friends have unlimited texting. I just text them pretty much all the time."

According to the report, she routinely messages a core group of "four obsessive texters," all girls between 12 and 13 years old on her LG phone. Reina managed to text one of her friends who was sitting right next to her at a karaoke party.

Hardesty's AT&T phone plan included unlimited texting for $30/month. If he would've had to pay standard AT&T rates the bill would've been a whopping $2,905.60 (at $0.20 per message).

According to Nielson studies, the average 13- to 17-yr old teen texts 1,742 messages per month. Hardesty admits that he texts around 900 messages per month (30 per day), which is about 700 more than his age group.

As a result of this last month's activity, and in an attempt to curtail her texting activity, Hardesty and his ex-wife have now told Reina she can no longer send text messages after dinner.

Well I am a 41 year old man and I go through between 125 to 200 a day myself. So yep I can believe that a teen could do much more than me.

I've never even been around a device with the capability. I recently broke down got the old lady and myself a pair of pay by the minute trak phones for emergiencies which neither of us have used yet. Other than that I'm a real luddite in this area. I talk on the telephone maybe 30 minutes a week total at work, and that's an onerous chore. I don't understand the appeal of the telephone.

Afraid I would be saying " not on my dime sweety" and the phone would be gone.

mc

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/20...ing/25-text.txt

Dad smashes teen's cell phone after 20,000 text messages
By Gazette News Services

CHEYENNE - A Cheyenne father smashed his teenage daughter's cell phone with a hammer after she sent or received about 20,000 text messages in a month.

The Christoffersen family's phone plan with Verizon didn't include texting, and the phone company charged them for each incoming and outgoing text.

Gregg and Jaylene Christoffersen thought texting had been disabled. They only learned their 13-year-old daughter Dena was doing so much of it when they received a phone bill for more than $4,750.

Its because of kids like this that I foresee in the immediate future a raising of the rate or for unlimited texting options to be eliminated.