When California man Greg Hardesty went through his daughter Reina’s cellphone statement, he almost laughed out hysterically.
His 13-year-old daughter’s statement showed that she had sent an astonishing 14,528 text messages in one month, and the online AT&T statement ran 440 pages.
“First, I laughed. I thought, ‘That''s insane, that''s impossible’,” the New York Post quoted the 45-year-old dad as saying.
“And I immediately whipped out the calculator to see if it was humanly possible,” he said.
Upon checking he discovered that 484 text messages had been sent per day, which came out to be one every two minutes of every waking hour.
“Then I thought maybe AT&T made some mistake on the bill,” said Hardesty, of Silverado Canyon.
But when the reporter for the Orange County Register grilled his daughter on her texting habit, he discovered something else.
“Who are you texting, anyway? Your entire school?” he asked.
“Well, a lot of my friends have unlimited texting. I just text them pretty much all the time,” she explained.
Luckily, Hardesty has a phone plan that allows unlimited texting for 30 dollars a month. Otherwise, he estimates, he would have owed AT&T 2,905.60 dollars at a rate of 20 cents per message.
{{/usCountry}}Luckily, Hardesty has a phone plan that allows unlimited texting for 30 dollars a month. Otherwise, he estimates, he would have owed AT&T 2,905.60 dollars at a rate of 20 cents per message.
{{/usCountry}}The average number of monthly texts for a 13- to 17-year-old teen is 1,742, according to a Nielsen study of cellphone usage.
Hardesty admits he himself punches in 900 messages a month, 700 more than average for his age group, according to Nielsen.
Hardesty and his ex-wife have since placed restrictions on Reina''s cellphone use, ruling she cannot text after dinner.