<p>I find that having steered two young men through the shoals of adolescence to college to be woefully inadequate training for dealing with a 16 year old girl. </p>
<p>In going over the phone bill, I find that DD has averaged 120 text messages, to and from…</p>
<p>each day. </p>
<p>120 a day, every day, week after week. In addition to the hundreds of minutes of cell phone usage, seamingly unlimited land line usage. And the IMs. And the occasional face to face conversation. How on earth can a person have that many messages to convey or receive in a single day? What can this possibly mean?</p>
<strong>ROFLMAO</strong> It can mean that she’s a normal sixteen-year-old girl!!! I have girls who are 17, 15, and 11, so you have my sympathy! ~b.</p>
<p>My S is a texting master as well. Never looked into how many are sent but it’s his preferred method of communication. We have unlimited texting on the phones so it’s not a big deal. S2 hates any form of communication but quick 30 second phone calls to make plans. Do you have a good cell phone plan to cover this?</p>
<p>The cell phone plan is convoluted and mysterious. Evenings and weekends, in-plan, out-of plan, shared minutes, etc. etc. All I know is that every single member of the family uses a large multiple of the number of minutes I use, and the cost is around $200 per month for five phones. But I do like being able to send a text to my kids from my computer, where I can type my message on an actual keyboard, instead of insanely punching minute buttons like a spasmodic chicken.</p>
<p>do you have to pay for her messages, or do you have an unlimited text messaging plan?</p>
<p>i was on my parents family plan and i paid about 35 a month for my portion and i had a text messaging plan and my mom always looked over the to and from messages and would ask me about them… and who i was messaging and how i managed to message so much when i have a full time job and blah blah… so i recently switched to verizon and am now paying about 50 a month to actually have some sort of privacy. (and much better reception) Well worth the money.</p>
<p>I refuse to pay for things like text messaging since I consider it in the category of ‘optional’. No one needs to text message. If my kids want to do it, they can pay for it. I also won’t pay for an ultra-large amount of minutes since I consider it unnecessary. I gave my kids cell phones for the kids and family to keep in touch - not so they can call their friends from anywhere at any time constantly. My bill’s around $69 per month for 4 phones.</p>
<p>our plan with tmobile was 50 a month plus 10 for each additional 3 phones so 80 which works otu to 20/person and then i had insurance and tax for 5 dollars and a 10 dollar text messaging so I paid 35/month. with verizon my plan is 35 and my texting is 10 and i figure after tax it’ll be about 50 total. I just got it.</p>
<p>Get a free calls to anyone with the same provider plan. I am with Cingular and all calls to/from cingular customers at any time do not count against the shared minutes bucket. Since all family members are on the plan, we can call each other any time we want.</p>
<p>i don’t know if you like tmobile, i think they’re horrible, however for 20 dollars you can have unlimited texting for your entire plan, which works out to 4/5 dollars per phone if you all use it.</p>
<p>my 16 year old does have text messaging on her phone- but she falls far short of 120 a day- I think the package is either 300 or 500 a month
the teens I know that have the most messages- are from boyfriend/girlfriends who need to text each other when they get up, when they go get the mail, when they go to bed…</p>
<p>my friends and i have different work schedules so we text during the day to leave each other messages for what we’re doing that night - we usually hang out like 3-4 nights per week so all t hat talking on our phones back and forth during the day (on our work breaks) to determine where to meet that night after work. I guess we could come up with this the night before, but it’s a lot easier during the day because maybe something came up or whatever. i text with my boyfriend occasionally but just to say if i’ll be late coming over or something.</p>
<p>Actually, we’ve found that texting is a handy tool in the parent’s toolbox. While the “independent” teenager might be mortified to have her friends overhear her talking to her mom, a discrete text message can be viewed and absorbed without drama. We have also used it to send reminders to our kids while they are in school. “Doc appt at 2. Meet you at office.”</p>
<p>But I have to admit - it takes me about 10 minutes to compose a text message. Among other things, I’m addicted to grammar, spelling and punctuation.</p>
<p>sjmom2329 - yeah, but when the aliens attack those boys will be ready to zap 'em, over and over and over…</p>
<p>kluge, does your phone have the thing where you can set it to automatically complete your words? I don’t know the exact terminology, but if you want to spell cat you just hit 228 and cat comes up and if not you hit some othe button and it gives you all of the options of words spelled with those letters… it makes it a lot easier than 22228 to individually get to cat.</p>
<p>Good point about the Alien Attack, Kluge. We’re ready!!! Actually, younger son will just argue with them about some esoteric topic until they run away.</p>
<p>I tried it - T9word - but I found it to be confusing. “Cats” comes out “acts” the first time around, and you have to cycle through the other words that use the same set of keystrokes to pick the one you want. I suspect if I got around to writing hundreds of them a day I’d get pretty good at it, though…</p>
<p>I remember the first time we had “issues” with texts, and I learned from my D that 120 texts a day is really only 60-they count texts IN and texts OUT. So she may have “only” sent 60 and then got 60 back. Or she may have received 120 and called them all back (yeh, right!). We used to have ATT and all incoming texts were “free” and not counted into the totals. And for $14.99 they were unlimited outgoing texts. Then came the merge with Cingular, and eventually we had to change plans. The first month was a shocker. With Cingular all outgoing AND INCOMING texts were counted, and no unlimited plan. Heck, I thought 1000 a month for $9.99 would be adequate. Can I tell you the first month the text overages on her phone alone added up to $84? We were only paying $100 a month for 4 phones total before that. That marked the end of text messages for a year. Turned off the service the next day.</p>