Texting on the rise along with annoyance

More and more Americans are using their mobile devices to send text messages, yet are annoyed with the interruptions and rudeness of other texters.

by Helen Leggatt

Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project's latest offering, "Cell Phones and American Adults", discovered that almost three-quarters (72%) of adult mobile phone users now send and receive text messages - up from 65% this time last year.

However, teens continue to lead in texting terms. Not only do the vast majority use text (87%), but while adults send and receive, on average, 10 texts per day the average teen texts 50 times.

Accompanying the rise in text use is a rise in annoyance caused by mobile use. Although most mobile phone users, teens and adults, feel safer with their device about their person (91%), and both groups acknowledge the role it plays in organizing their social life (88%), a great many (86%) find it rude when others check their phones when holding a conversation.

Forty-two percent of all mobile users are irritated by calls and texts that interrupt them however 65% sleep with their phone on or right next to them in bed.

Adults as a group are not particularly likely to use a mobile phone to amuse themselves when at a loose end. According to the report, "The one place where teens and adults diverge is over attitudes towards the phone as a stop gap entertainment platform for fighting boredom. Just about 2 in 5 adults (39%) say they use their cell phone to entertain themselves when they are bored. By contrast, nearly 7 in 10 teens with cell phones (69%) say they use their phone to beat back boredom."