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Americans Are Sending More Text Messages Than Ever

15 December 2009 97 views No Comment

Text MessagesSince 2003, text messaging in the U.S. has increased by more than 52 times.

According to the Census Bureau, the number of text messages sent on U.S. mobile phones has more than doubled every year since 2003, when 2.1 billion text messages were sent.

Then in 2004, 4.7 billion messages were sent, 9.8 the following year, and 18. 7 billion in 2006, before coming to a ridiculously high 48.1 billion in 2007.

The number of text messages more than doubled again to a whopping 110.4 billion between 2007 and 2008.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of mobile phone subscribers was up by 70 percent in the same six-year period, rising from slightly less than 159 million in 2003 to around 270 million last year.

The CTIA-Wireless Association, a nonprofit representing Internet service providers, put together a semi-annual survey from where the bureau received this data.

According to the association’s research, the average monthly bill for mobile phone users has hovered around the $50 mark since 2003, which marks a significant savings on the amount Americans used to pay every month to use a mobile phone in 1990, when cellular telephone technology was in its infancy.

$81 was the average monthly bill back then.

Kids have created many different acronyms and abbreviations used while texting, such as “OMG!” for “Oh my God!” and “PAW” for “parents are watching.”

Texting has also spawned new ailments, including “Blackberry thumb” — a repetitive strain injury caused by constant texting.

The data are included in the 129th edition of the Census Bureau’s annual Statistical Abstract, whose more romantic name is “Uncle Sam’s Almanac” and which includes 1,400 tables of social, political and economic facts about the United States and the world.

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