New stats finds people are texting more and talking less
Posted December 16, 2009 6:52 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Text messaging has apparently become more popular than chatting on the phone, according to new evidence released Tuesday.
In fact, the Census Bureau in the United States has found the nation’s 270 million cell phone subscribers sent out more than 110 billion texts in December 2008, which is double the amount from 2007.
This comes at a time when some behavioural scientists have concerns society is becoming more emotionally distant.
Meantime, 680News took to the streets at Yonge and Bloor to find out just how many people have text-appeal.
This woman considers texting the superior form of communication, “I just think it’s a lot faster. It’s a lot easier to get a message across.”
While this mother says even though she prefers the personal nature of a phone call, she reluctantly texts because it is the better way to reach her kids.
“If they’re with their friends, picking up the phone and saying ‘hi mom’ is really embarrassing – texting is kind of on the sly type of thing so […] their friends don’t need to know that mommy’s calling them.”
And that is the case with a lot of teens because according to the statistics, the average teen currently sends more than 2,000 text messages a month because it is simple and private.
However, one man says he worries the art of conversation is being replaced by sterile electronic messages.
“You can walk through the mall here and find very little communication. But you can see hundreds of people just staring at the small screen on their phone.”
