Young adults stand far above all other demographic groups when it comes to their usage of text messaging. Fully 95% of 18-29 year olds say they use the text messaging feature on their phones, and these users send or receive an average of 87.7 text messages on a normal day. By comparison, all adults who say they use text messaging send or receive an average of 41.5 text messages a day.

The youngest adults (those between the ages of 18 and 24) are even more proficient in their texting habits. Both cell ownership and text messaging are nearly universal among 18-24 year olds — 95% own a cell phone and 97% of these cell owners use text messaging — and this group sends or receives an average of 109.5 messages every day. One quarter of 18-24 year old text messaging users report sending or receiving more than 100 texts per day. Just over one in ten say that they send or receive more than 200 messages on an average day –that equals 6,000 or more messages per month.

To put these numbers in perspective, the average of 109.5 texts per day among 18-24 year olds is more than double the comparable figure for 25-34 year olds, and 23 times the figure for text messaging users who are 65 or older. Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.