UCalling Yesterday, Texting Today, Using Apps Tomorrow

If it seems like American teens are texting all the time, it’s probably because on average they’re sending or receiving 3,339 texts a month. That’s more than six per every hour they’re awake, and an eight percent jump from last year.

Using recent data from monthly cell phone bills of more than 60,000 mobile subscribers as well as survey data from over 3,000 teens, The Nielsen Company analyzed mobile usage data among teens in the United States for the second quarter of 2010 (April 2010 – June 2010).

No one texts more than teens (age 13-17), especially teen females, who send and receive an average of 4,050 texts per month. Teen males also outpace other male age groups, sending and receiving an average of 2,539 texts. Young adults (age 18-24) come in a distant second, exchanging 1,630 texts per month (a comparatively meager three texts per hour).

The undeniable area of growth is in data usage: 94 percent of teen subscribers self-identify as advanced data users, turning to their cellphones for messaging, Internet, multimedia, gaming, and other activities like downloads.

While teen usage does not reach levels of activity seen by young adults, it has increased substantially compared to the second quarter of 2009, from 14 MBytes to 62 MBytes.

U.S. Teen Mobile Report: Calling Yesterday, Texting Today, Using Apps Tomorrow