<p>My kids look forward to reviewing the bill to see who the household texting champ is each month. When my son jumped from 20 texts a month to over 200 we had a hunch a young lady might be involved. I have a feeling he’ll be over 2000 on the next bill now that they are bf/gf. My girls do about 1000-1200 each. They both do a lot of old-fashioned talking on their phones too. Thankfully their closest friends are in network.</p>
<p>It just occurred to me that in our case, the bill was last month (from 12/15 to 1/15) which was over winter break. And because of snow, my D had an extra week off school during that time. Probably accounts for all of the texts.</p>
<p>Me, I had 8 texts during that month. :)</p>
<p>Whew! I just checked because texting is the only sure why I can get a response from S2. He had 415 on the current bill. 6000 seems excessive even if it is in conversation.</p>
<p>14 yr old has had as high as 3000. Once she bought herself the blackberry her texting went way up. She was constantly on that thing. After some discussion it went down to about 2000. Her grades are good and she is involved in alot of activities. I think many are one or two words done between tasks. We did just take the phone and computer away for a consequence and it is amazing how much more we actually see of her.
My older two text just below 1000. I text very little but do find it a great way to leave messages for my kids. I find they rarely listen to voice mail and if I need to reach them texting is the best way. We have a family plan with unlimited texting.</p>
<p>I don’t really keep track of my texts, but I do text quite a bit.</p>
<p>I agree with the earlier posts about how conversations via texting really inflates the number. I also think that as long as OP’s daughter’s grades don’t suffer, there’s no problem. Texting is the new talking on the phone. I very rarely hold phone conversations with my friends anymore, unless it’s something I need right that second and I can’t wait for them to respond.</p>
<p>I have unlimited texting plan on my cell phone and it’s really great if you’re not always home and people need to reach you. Granted, I have never done 6000 texts in a month.</p>
<p>We have virtually unilimited “voice” minutes on our family cell plan, because the 800-ish included minutes is way more than our family members use. So, we have huge rollover minutes.</p>
<p>Just because we have them doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for any one family member to spend that much time on the phone.</p>
<p>I see texting the same way. We don’t text at all and never added any texting to our plan. When it first came into being, I told S he could text as much as he wanted but he would pay for texting. Ditto ringtone downloads, etc. He’s frugal so he does almost none of either.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s “wrong” that your D texts “so much.” But I do think you’re correct to worry about where her time goes, what her priorities are, how she interacts. Technology has changed the way people communicate (here we all are “chatting” on cc, after all :rolleyes:)… But if you want to discourage it, I would (1)either eliminate the unlimited plan and have her pay over “x” minutes… or (2) have <em>her</em> pay for the unlimited plan - probably isn’t that much, but it’s never too early for college students to learn that these things are not free, and involve trade-offs (unlimited texting means fewer Starbucks lattes, or fewer purchases at the Mall, or less money saved for her own future).</p>
<p>My 12 year old hit 1390 last month and the plan’s max is 1000 so we got a huge bill. I went on T-Mobile and curbed it because its too many…she should be doing something else at this age, like reading a book or riding a bike!</p>
<p>It really is funny to read us. Two teenage boys and two parents - total text messages for all of us less than a dozen a month most of them spam.</p>
<p>I’ve mentioned this thread to my son ( 10k texts last month). He was surprised he had so many. I was picking him up from soccer practice at the time ( he practices at least three times/week, sometimes twice a day with different teams, so it’s not like he sits around texting all the time), and he turned on his phone to find four textx waiting. They were from four different friends. I have no idea what about, but we then discussed the difference between texting and “face booking”, which he only checks a few times a week. D, with far fewer texts, probably checks facebook a lot more.</p>
<p>I’m a guy, and I average about 4K texts/month. I pay for my own phone bill, and my grades are fine. As long as the grades are OK, I see no issue with it.</p>