Nearly one-third of cell phone users prefer text to talk

Eighty-three percent of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73 percent) send and receive text messages. In fact, texting has become so popular that nearly one-third (31 percent)of all adults who text now say that they prefer to be contacted that way rather than receive a phone call.

Not surprisingly, heavy text users are much more likely to prefer texting to talking, with 55 percent of those who send or receive more than 50 texts a day saying they would rather text than make a voice call.

The study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project also confirmed that young adults are the most avid texters, and by a wide margin. Cell phone owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages a day, a total of more than 3,200 texts a month.

The next age group, 25 to 34-year-olds, typically average 42 texts per day, and the downward trend continues to about 5 texts per day for the 65-and-older group.

The Pew study only looked at adult cell phone users. Earlier studies suggest that teenagers remain far ahead when it comes to both the number of texts they send and receive (up to 200 per day) and the percentage of teens that prefer texting as their primary means of communication (over 70 percent).

Interestingly, while the number of people that prefer texting to talking on cell phones continues to rise, the absolute number of text messages that people send is showing signs of leveling off. Texters send an average of 41.5 texts on a typical day, a figure which is largely unchanged from 2010. The number of phone calls made or received is 12 per day, also unchanged from a  year ago.