Girl texts 14,258 times in a month, has sore fingers, and only 3 friends
In December, Reina Hardesty sent 14,258 text messages, which works out to 470 a day, or one every two minutes. Father Hardesty -- he's not a priest, we just don't happen to know his full name -- apparently caught on to his daughter's madness when he received a 440-page bill from AT&T, which, we're really hoping, was the electronic kind. This story does have a happy ending, mind you: the parents had wisely opted for unlimited texting for the youngster and have now applied an electronic muzzle on her texting after dinner.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Richard @ Jan 14th 2009 12:02AM
My sister sent 17,755 in October...Out of control
Jeff @ Jan 14th 2009 12:52AM
You're not serious are you?
nerdtalker @ Jan 14th 2009 1:47AM
I did 14,786 last month, which isn't unusual (yes, I work too, and I have more than a paltry 3 friends and no sore fingers). Sprint, HTC Touch Pro, SERO unlimited texts (thank God).
ananimus3 @ Jan 14th 2009 4:08AM
Have your sister or nerdtalker ever considered using the "phone" feature on their texting machines?
Scott @ Jan 14th 2009 12:11PM
I work at a major mobile phone company and the most I ever saw, and I am not kidding was someone who consistantly did 60,000 and up with their highest being over 83,000!!! That is not a typo. For one month. The way it can happen is very simple. Multiple messaging. You can send a message to many people at the same time or think about IM. You send a IM to all your 20 or 30 or however many you have and boom, there's 30 messages in one second. So they can add up really fast. Thats why we push the unlimited plans all the time, no worries. Had Mr at@t had a smaller plan, His bill would have been huge, we see it all thie time.
haX0r @ Jan 15th 2009 2:50AM
People would be better off calling and getting the conversation over with when you are sending out more than 5,000 text per month. That's insane! I work in a very busy business and I don't get 6,000 emails a month!
Instead, these kids should spend more time teaching themselves to install dual booting OS's with Win7 and Unbuntu instead of texting your friends: Got bud?
Otherwise, our good neighbors from India can keep importing their computer engineers while our education levels is this country goes flushes into the toleit. While UC schools said today that they have to lower entrance numbers for new students next fall because they are underfunded.
I blame the parents.
Graffitimonkie @ Jan 14th 2009 12:05AM
I really hope that that bill that came in was in electronic form, 440 pages of paper sent to a person to document "free unlimited text messaging" is a waste of resources.
By the way, a kid can often use instant messaging to conduct an entire conversation which may include easily 100 messages to and 100 from, but the phone companies usually dock those off as texts unless the customer has a IM client on their phone and a data plan. So this is not completely far out.
http://www.tranharry.com/
Roger Alford @ Jan 14th 2009 12:20AM
How soon we all forget some of the highest members at UPOC who used 70,000 in a month, or a person like me, who used 15,000 in the first month I had unlimited texts, and texting to only 2 others with unlimited messages, and tons without messaging (pay per message), around 2003-2004
rex2745 @ Jan 14th 2009 12:24AM
that's ridiculous seriously u could tell that girl doesn't have a life and is just texting all day. i text but not all sick like that i hate when my friend is rite there every second popping out her phone to text its really rude especially when Ur talking to them how rude but whatever i just leave when they do that
flippykippy @ Jan 14th 2009 12:58AM
I have friends who do 28,000. I have no idea how but ive seen it. i dont care if someone texts while you talk to them, conversations can be really long and you can do both at the same time. plus sent and recieve easily could be 8 a minute if you're talking alot. I'm consistently at 7,000 max ever at 13,500. Not hard.
DssTrainer @ Jan 14th 2009 1:43AM
mass text likely.... one text sent to 10 people = 10 texts
Michael @ Jan 14th 2009 12:37AM
That's not excessive. It's excessive that AT&T feels it necessary to document on paper every single word texted (and more than just a little creepy and violating the privacy of people) and waste who knows how many trees on people who don't get e-billing. I text 15,000 a month easy, and not to just 3 people.
James @ Jan 14th 2009 3:10AM
AT&T conducted a paperwork reduction sweep at the end of 2007. Customer wishing to maintain detailed billing must opt-in for 1.99/mo./line. So you see, this girl's parents opted for this. It is a pretty common occurrence that we have customers who become irate at the idea of being told that their only no cost option is to view them online. But no your right, mobility's intention every morning is to get up and piss of its customers, cut down trees and club baby kittens.
kimberly @ Jan 14th 2009 11:08AM
I work for at&t and we do not document the actual message on paper and as of last year we pulled detailed paper billing unless the customer requests it and pays an extra $1.99 per line. This was done to comply with goverment regulations to reduce our carbon footprint and to save the company money as well. Also I've seen worse. Kids are out of control when it comes to phone usage and most of it is a few words per message. My sister in law has the smallest minute plan available but unlimited messaging and data and she uses about 16,000 messages on average per month but never talks on the phone.
AJ @ Jan 14th 2009 12:48AM
wow, i didnt think someone could actually do that. i think i've sent like 40 texts in my life, and thats it
xnifex @ Jan 14th 2009 1:06AM
so what, does at&t include each text & its contents on the bill?
i've done 15,000 in a month when i used to text my sister-in-law's deaf sister. she was cool & it was the only way i could communicate with her.
seven @ Jan 14th 2009 2:05AM
umm, ur sister-in-law's deaf sister?
xnifex @ Jan 14th 2009 3:06AM
My brother's wife's sister. Better?
Pablo @ Jan 14th 2009 8:18AM
Why wouldn't she just be your deaf sister-in-law?
PH0ENIX @ Jan 14th 2009 3:15PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister-in-law
George @ Jan 14th 2009 2:02AM
Since 11/14/2008 I've sent 16,000 on my iPhone to 78 different people lol. I'm a busy college student with a life, I can type faster on my iPhone than on a computer. I've texted since my old Nokia 5190 back in 8th grade 7 years ago :0 probably gone through over half a million texts in my lifetime :0
pen15 yo @ Jan 14th 2009 2:38PM
"with a life"
ha. butt loads of texting to me seems like you have no life.
George @ Jan 14th 2009 4:07PM
You wish you had the life I did...lol I have 78 people contacting me in a month....and none of them are from work. I dont text when I hang with people...only when Im in bed, in class, in the car, on a train, or at work...At least Im never bored :D
ben shammeny @ Jan 14th 2009 4:20PM
to tell you the truth, you and your 78 people have no lives together
hello, hi, i'm bored, lol, really, omg, wtf, no way
hope you don't text like this
The Oracle @ Jan 14th 2009 4:26PM
I have 79 friends contacting me
hahaha
WixosTrix @ Jan 14th 2009 2:38AM
That's a lot but I guess people can do it. AT&T sends you a bill with every text sent and received, however not the contents of the message. Some people like my Grandmother are stubborn and won't get the e-bill, but she also doesn't have a computer. I usually do around 4000 and she gets almost 100 pages a month for that. They really need to think of a better idea for paper billing.
xnifex @ Jan 14th 2009 3:09AM
Yeah that's pretty stupid. I like how tmobile just tells you how many sent & how many received.
CapnShiner @ Jan 14th 2009 3:11AM
Maybe they could send the bill via text messages, lol
kimberly @ Jan 14th 2009 11:08AM
wixostrix ask at&t for call details only but to remove the data detailed billing. you will still see how many messages were done but not the multiple pages of details. I work for at&t and it can be done.
Omi @ Jan 14th 2009 4:26AM
This is news? Seriously, though I have cut down, I have sent many many many messages. SMS is free in Japan. :)
One day, 2007 summer holiday actually, I sent 1,000 Messages to one person from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. I have yet to do that again though :p
(p.s. he replied to them aswell :p )
MikeWard1701 @ Jan 14th 2009 4:54AM
Some of these figures don't surprirse me, people like my sister constantly texting away.
I just signed up to a new T-Mobile contract with unlimited texts and almost fainted when I read my first bill.
Not because of the number of texts I'd sent, but rather what T-Mo gives you as an unlimited text allowance.
"Unlimited Text
Allowance: 4516120
Used: 4"
Thats 4,516,120 texts! Four million, five hundred sixteen thousand, one hundred twenty!
How the hell am I ever supposed to even approach sending that many texts!? In a 31 day month I'd need to send over 6,070 texts an hour!
What did bring a huge smile to my face though was working out how much the allowance is worth.
At £0.12 ($0.17) a text, it's a total of £541,934.40 ($787,392.06)
Half a million punds of allowance! for £35 ($50.84) a month!
I don't know about other tariffs, but this is probaby one of the best value for money ones I've ever encountered!
PS: I'm open to suggestions on how I can send 4,516,120 a month :P
kimberly @ Jan 14th 2009 11:07AM
MikeWard1701, set up your e-mail to be forwarded to your phone by text then sign up for a bunch of junk mail. You may break your phone by the end of the 1st day when it drives you crazy but it will use a chunk of your text messages. :)
alltouchdiamondcom @ Jan 14th 2009 6:09AM
I wonder how much the bill was.
Jolkro @ Jan 14th 2009 7:51AM
If u send the maximum allowed message, I think the standard is 10X160, to lets say a 107 friends, then u will only have to send 6 messages an hour.
Or u could send 12 messages each hour for 12 hours, and then u would have 12 hours of no messaging, that u could use for something else then bothering your 107 friends ;-)
thesvtautox @ Jan 14th 2009 12:03PM
I dont understand why this is news. Seeing it on engadget is fine, but I heard this story on NPR on my way to work today. I guess the older generation is finally realizing that people text. alot. I work for a wireless company and some of these people get mad if i offer them text packages "OMG, I DONT DO THAT KIDDIE SHIT. TEXTING IS WHAT KIDS DO." and they completely fail to realize the usefulness of it. Some people dont use it fine, but dont get mad about it. well, i guess i went off on a tangent, but anyways, why is this news?
pen15 @ Jan 14th 2009 2:46PM
here's an idea
actually talk to a person face to face
no need for 100+ texts a day, pathetic
David Robison @ Jan 14th 2009 4:02PM
Yeah, I think Reina's father ought to spend some more face time with his daughter!
seven @ Jan 15th 2009 12:03AM
but this is the 21st century, i'd rather send an e-mail to my mom telling her i'll be down for dinner in a minute...
pen15 @ Jan 15th 2009 2:00AM
that only takes one message and it's actually a message
Eddy @ Jan 14th 2009 4:16PM
WOW. The most I've ever done is only 1000 and I thought that was a lot! Unfortunately, I didn't have unlimited text messaging back then because I don't think Cingular offered it yet (this awhile ago). I remember hardly anyone texted and their excuses were always "I prefer to call, texting is too expensive!" Now it's the opposite!
D @ Jan 14th 2009 6:21PM
That ain't nothin', my daughter sent out a ridiculous 100k text messages last month or the month before. I even have limits set for times! It's amazing how fast she is! That was with a SE W580 too and now she has a Samsung Gravity......
calvin @ Jan 14th 2009 9:43PM
compared to the article ryan block posted in engadget almost 4 years ago,
this story seems kinda weak:
http://www.engadget.com/2005/05/11/indian-man-sends-182-689-sms-messages-in-one-month/
still though, that's a lot of text messages... but that's what teenagers opt for nowadays especially in class.
Ron Mcearchern @ Jan 14th 2009 9:51PM
I work for a company that runs text camapigns for customers, and I had one guy do 104,000 entries to the contest in under a month.
Too bad they only counted one entry per number ( as stated in the rules and the commercials)
James @ Jan 14th 2009 10:32PM
WOW, that girl is insane, the most ive ever done was around 10,000, but that was when i had my tmobile dash.
since then i have upgraded to an iphone and my texting has gone way way down to about less then 2000 a month.
texting with the iphone to me is harder and more annoying lol :P
too many typos and sometimes the words dont come out right
but dont get me wrong i still love it
Al @ Jan 14th 2009 10:45PM
I wonder what would happen if you were to break her fingers...
pen15 @ Jan 14th 2009 11:45PM
have you ever seen a chicken eat?
soccerpro100cn @ Jan 15th 2009 12:12AM
that's nothing. pshh my friend txts like 200 txts in our 6 hour school day. ugh my iphone vibrates every 45 secs and i must reply :)
proud to say i still have b's and higher in honors classes though. it's called passive listening!
Cody @ Jan 17th 2009 2:59PM
When I was dating a nutjob of a girlfriend, I went over 25k texts because she NEEDED to be in communication at me at all hours, if I didn't text her within 2 minutes of replying a txt, a phone call was expected