300 text messages per day – we discover that's the average number sent by young Bermudians

Jessie Moniz

Created: Sep 02, 2009 11:00 AM

Finger on the pulse: Royal Gazette summer student Marcus Thomas caused intrigue in the office with his text messaging - and then astonishment when it became apparent that he and his generation regularly send on average 300 text communications every day.

Warning: the following article may contain words indecipherable to the average person over 30. See the translation key.

It's an old story, boy meets a MOOS, they exchange winks and a few LOLs, and then if all goes well they have lots of texts, and maybe one day will MIRL and HAK.

It's the age of textual reproduction, and today's young people are texting a lot.

This article was partly inspired by The Royal Gazette summer student, Marcus Thomas, 17.

He had a curious habit of opening his desk drawer, peering in and then closing it again. Other than this weird habit, he was a model Bermudian summer student.

Was he looking for a pen? Was he really bored? Did he hear voices coming from within? (EG)

In a manner of speaking, yes to the voices. It turned out that Marcus was checking for replies to the 300 or so text messages he sent out every day.

Marcus was quickly dispatched to e-mail his friends about their texting habits.

"Could I just text them?" he asked. "It's faster."

Three-hundred messages turned out to be about average, amongst Marcus' friends with some people texting as many as 500 or more messages per day. (OMG)

"All Day" was the response from one young woman when asked 'how much do you text?'.

"(I text) until I go to bed about midnight. If I wake up during the night and see a message I usually reply only if it is from my boyfriend," she said.

She admitted that sometimes she got a sore thumb.

There are a number of serious issues surrounding teens and cellular telephones, including personal safety, cyber bullying, youth crime, and road safety, among other things.

One might say to parents, 'do you know where your child is — in the virtual world?'

Kinda Bassett, 13, spent months packing groceries to a buy a BlackBerry smartphone.

She had to add her grocery packing money to her life's savings to buy the $300 phone that allows you to make calls and cruise the Internet.

Then one day, while at dance class, the BlackBerry was stolen.

"She knew some of the girls by face but the phone was in her shoe in the dressing room," said her mother, Wendy Bassett. "The public can't just walk in, as there is always a parent or adult in the waiting area outside the dressing room."

The phone was never recovered.

Magistrate Tyrone Chin, who works in the juvenile court, told The Royal>Gazette that the number one juvenile offence in Bermuda involves cell phones.

"We have cases here where young men were robbing other teenagers for their cell phones when they themselves were given cell phones by their mothers only weeks prior," he said.

"But what they were given wasn't the particular cell phone they wanted.

"They wanted the more 'bling' cell phone, and they were willing to use force to take it. Afterward they might change the sim card. We had a spate of those last year."

And he said that as chairman of the family court, he could see that people were texting much more than they did in the past.

"One teenage boy confessed to me that he can text message without looking at the keys," said Mr. Chin. "I asked him what he learned in school last week, but he couldn't tell me."

Truell Landy, programme supervisor at PRIDE Bermuda, an organisation that works with young people to tackle community drug use, said cyber bullying is on the rise on the Island.

Cyber bullying is described as bullying behaviour that is delivered through technology [EmDash]through mobile phones or over the Internet.

In Australia, earlier this month, mother Karen Rae blamed Internet cyber bullying on the suicide death of her 14-year-old daughter Chanelle. Chanelle received an on-line threat only hours before she took her life.

Ms Landy said Bermuda was not immune to cyber bullying.

"Bullying through cell phone text messages is a very real problem here in Bermuda amongst our teen population," said Ms Landy. "It is more a problem with girls than boys."

"The messages can be very cruel and leave very deep emotional scars. The bullies have no real regard for the feelings of their victims. The thought of harm does not seem to enter the picture."

She suggested that parents have a frank talk with their young people about this issue.

"Talk about it from the view of being the bully and the victim," she said. "Youth who experience bullying need to be taken seriously and need to know they have their family's support to lessen the emotional damage these messages leave on our youth.

"Our children are our responsibility as parents and adults," said Ms Landy. "We have to be aware of the many vices they will encounter in life and equip them with the necessary coping skills."

There have been many local incidents where young people have used cell phones and gotten themselves into serious trouble.

Last month, Ze Selassie, 32 was sent to jail for brutally murdering 14-year-old Rhiana Moore. She was pregnant with his child, and it was found that the two kept in contact, without parental knowledge, through frequent text messaging.

In 2007, Alvone McJuan Maybury, 21, pleaded guilty in Magistrates' Court to having unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 16.

He kept in contact with his 14-year-old victim through a cell phone he bought her. She gave it back, but the two continued their relationship, until the girl contracted a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

Many of the teenagers The Royal Gazette polled said their parents appeared to be unconcerned about teen cell phone use.

One 17-year-old Warwick girl texted: "I got my first cell phone when I was 12. I text 100 to 200 messages a day. My parents don't ask what I am writing and they text each other and their friends.

"I have no restrictions on how I text."

For many parents it was a question of trust.

One Sandys parish mother of a 19-year-old son said she encouraged him to text rather than call because it was cheaper.

"We use it to keep in touch during the day," she said.

She never asked her son who else he was texting.

"I trust them, so no," she said.

And she said that her cell phone bill showed the telephone numbers being texted.

She said she had never taken the phone away from her son, because he had never abused his phone privileges.

But many parents were more strict.

One mother of a 14-year-old said she bought her son a phone so she would always know where he was.

"It gives me peace of mind that he can text or call me and tell me where he is," she said. "I often look at his phone. I know who he is texting."

She said she looked at his phone, whether or not she had his permission. (CD9).

"I pay for the phone," she said. "He doesn't grumble, because I bought the phone for him, and I can take it away again."

She said she also had a 23-year-old daughter.

"Sometimes I ask her 'who are you texting?' I do ask. I do know who my kids are texting," she said. (POS)

She also said that her cell phone company allowed her to obtain a printout of text messages sent from her cell phone. She advised other parents to ask their cell phone provider about this.

But law student Justin Maybury, 17, said many teenagers would see parental examination of their text messages as an invasion of privacy. (MYO)

"That is all your private information right there for anyone to read," he said. "I know I wouldn't be happy if my parents wanted to read my messages. Even when I was younger I would have been upset. I am pretty protective of what my messages are about."

He admitted that if he had children of his own it could possibly be a different story.

"It is hard to say if I would be as lax with my own kids," he admitted. "I am saying that now, but if I had kids I might say something different.

"From a parental standpoint, if you want to be really protective then you might want to check it, but if you trust your kids then there is no reason why you should." (QFI)

Parents with kids as young as seven and eight years old said they felt pressure to buy them cellular phones. But many of them were choosing to resist the pressure.

"We have an eight-year-old and no, she does not have a cell phone," said Dina Correia. "Yes, there is pressure to get her one but as we take her to school and we pick her up we do not feel that it is necessary.

"I personally feel that children spend too much time texting and they are losing the art of verbal communication.

"It seems also to be a competition as to who has the latest phone and we are trying to go against the flow and do what we feel is best.

"Cell phones have caused a problem in school as young people text about other young people during school and there are fights because of this.

"Some schools have banned the use of cell phones during school hours and will confiscate them if you are seen with them."

She said that although cell phones were a useful tool, she felt the texting world had become "a beast that is out of control".

Claire-Anne Raynor who has two children under ten, said they would NOT be getting a cellular phone.

"It is very hard for parents to monitor the conversations their children are having when they have cell phones, especially for those parents that are not deeply in tune with the text messaging language.

"Simple conversations like BRB…PRW… (be right back… parents are watching) would not be picked up by the not-so-tech-savvy parent.

"Our teens and pre-teens are having explicit conversations right under our noses, because we as parents fall prey to the cell phone phenomenon."

Sunshine Chumney, 17, said that cell phones had become a "gross addiction" for many of her friends.

"It's not only kids who are addicts, but kids are the ones who seem to 'overdo' it," she said. "Personally, I don't send 300 texts a day or even a week."

But she said she knew some teenagers her age who texted every waking moment.

"When we wake up, we text our friend that we've just woken up," she said. "If we go to the bathroom, we might tell them."

She said some teenagers might say they use it to keep in touch with their mothers, but most teens do not use it for this purpose.

(FYI) For more information about cyberbullying go to