and it's never been so simple as just go use the office phone at any school i've ever dealt with.

however as a parent, if the school made confiscation w/o proof of misuse a policy, i'd have to give serious consideration to either pulling my kid or advising him to keep the phone hidden. i bought it so i can reach him or he me if there's a significant change in the family schedule or ER. not so it can sit in some teacher's desk.

It's absolutely unreasonable, and probably one of the reasons why the teen was clueless as to what the amount would end up being. There is just no reason for the ridiculous charges that they apply to these things that are inherently part of the network anyway. The teen simply had no idea that it COULD end up costing that much, probably because she thought the same thing everyone else does; there is no way that 5 characters of text can equal $.10 of operation cost!

@johnva: My texting consists of the following messages

"Pick up your phone"
"Pick up milk"
"Take out trash"
"Take out steak for dinner"

and my auto response is
"Yes baby"

Married life. Good thing she doesn't read consumerist.

Let's say 5 friends. Each out-going text counts as 5. Ten message later, 50 texts.

Easy peasy.

I'm hoping you were able to rattle that off because you yourself use a similar plan, but still. If I used SMS often you would have sold me on it.

And I think you've put your finger on it the reason--it's about keeping the connection with friends constant, and I think it's a mixture of "I'm so important" and "I'm afraid I'm not included." The tough thing for parents is they've already lost authority compared to peers at that age, and this makes the peers even more dominant.

Dad should have eBayed the phone and used the proceeds towards the bill instead of smashing it. What a waste.

But I do understand why carriers charge us for something that is essentially free for them and I hope they keep charging. Text message fees help subsidize our plan costs. If they didn't get the $5 - $25 per person wanting to use unlimited texts each of our cell phone bills would be several dollars higher each month.

Two reasons:

First, as I said in another thread above, why does the kid need a cell in school. Leave it at home, if you need to make a call go to the office.

Second, it is the parents' responsibility to teach their children what is and is not expected of them. If you are using technology as a crutch for your parenting this is what happens when the technology fails. If, on the other hand, you tell your child, "Here's this cell phone, it can text but if you use more than XX number of texts you will be responsible for paying for them." AND you follow up with that, then your child learns how to be a responsible member of society.

My sister used this on my nephew - the first time he went over the limit (by about $10 because he lost track of when the limit reset) he learned his lesson and never did it again. He also did some math and decided that he'd be willing to pay $10 a month to get more texts.

Good on Verizon for working with the charges.

First, it's called unlimited texting, look into it.

Next, why does she need the cell during the day? If she is out with friends, fine but doesn't the school have a phone that can be used for emergencies during the day?

That's what a friend is doing with her daughter who ran up an obscene bill a few months ago by doing something similar. Little does the thirteen year-old know, the cellphone company (I forget which one) has waived most or all of the charges - all she knows is that she isn't getting her phone back until she's foregone her allowance and done every chore her parents can think of for a very long time.

Hey!

The problem I see is that kids feel that they have to be in some sort of constant communication with their friends or the world will end (the "precious-snowflake," "I'm so important" mentality). Once they get out of school and into a "real job," they'll realize that there are generally real consequences for ignoring real people (like co-workers) in favor of texting their BFF Jill. And unlike your phone, you won't get your job back at the end of the day.

Texting has it's time and place, no doubt, but I guess I'll always see it as a secondary form of communication to live interaction.

Simple cause and effect.

@nakedscience:
Funny, I remember walking to and from school and staying late for extra-curricular activities...and there were no cell phones then. Somehow, we all managed to survive..crazy!

I will give out my email but then that lets me get back to the person at my convienience.

The girl's parents, Gregg and Jaylene Christoffersen, thought texting had been disabled, so one can imagine their surprise when they got the monthly phone bill and it asked for $4,756.25.

So someone screwed up. The parents either didn't call Verizon to specifically disable texting or Verizon didn't do what was requested of them, though the news article did say the bill was legit.

Kids need to learn the lesson that there is a time and place for everything, and listening to your iPod during class or texting during class simply is not appropriate.

Especially teenagers who will be entering into the job market in a few years. I think we all shudder when we think of what is to come, a bunch of teens who do nothing but text at work because they don't know self control because they were never taught that there is a time and place for everything. If they are allowed to text in high school that attitude will carry right over to the workplace and then they are in for a huge reality shock when they get fired because of too much texting while on the job.

I think the best solution here are the phones that are only allowed to call a few numbers, however those usually cost more than a regular cell phone plan from what I read. This way you are not compromising a teen's safety. Yes many teens went without phones for a very long time back in the day, but we live in a much different world now.

I have a cell phone but I only use it for emergencies, I use my computer at home for everything else and I find I don't really need any kind of portable entertainment beyond a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP, which you are not charged to use. You only have to pay for the device and games, and games can be found for around 10$ each most of the time if you shop carefully.

(And I don't mean this to sound pejorative; I just don't share the feeling.)

It reminds me a little bit of the changing view toward long-distance calls in my lifetime. When I was a kid they were OMGImportant! and you wouldn't just call to hang out with somebody who wasn't close enough for you to see. I think the texting theory is "Why wait to be with friends face to face when I can be with them virtually now?" To Dena and other multi-texters I think the phone is transparent--they're just hanging out with their friends when petty things like class would otherwise prevent them. They're not trying to write deathless prose any more than they're trying to be the Algonquin Round Table when they're chatting over coffee.

I'm also with you on the Tweeting during a speech (didn't some Congresscritter try to pretend s/he hadn't done that and then got caught?). However, I'm also horrified when my colleagues swap between note-taking at a speech and surfing/doing work on their open laptops, so it's not just the texting crowd that are drifting away electronically.

@DrGirlfriend:
In my college if you have a cell phone during a test and it rings or the professor sees it then you get a zero for the test/exam. When the test counts for 20 % of your grade you turn it off. During those times not one student has his/ hers phone out.

The fact that carriers can charge that month for such a small amount of data being transmitted is unbelievable.

@sockrockinbeats:
My senior year of high school I spent 30+ hours a week at work. I also spent 15 minutes of my lunch planning for work. I would get last minute changes for work and I would need to be able to hear them. . I would be at class at 8 am and get home at 11PM. That said I never used it during class and I learned to hate the cell. I am proof that high-schoolers need their phones at school.

Sure paying $20/month is better than overage charges, but parents and children should sit down and have an understanding of the cell plan and unless the kiddies are paying for it, I would expect most of them should be nothing less than gracious to accept whatever type of plan their parents provide FOR FREE to them.

Having a limited texting plan can be a way for familes to scrimp and save nowadays, and kids are just going to have to accept that.

Office phones and pay phones were available for true emergencies, of course, at any time that such an emergency arose, so the "emergency" excuse would not come into play.

Child learns how to manage the account and regulate his or her own usage.

And, sorry to say, misspelling "cell", "it's" and spewing couple paragraphs of word salad text isn't laziness, it's lack of ability. Getting back to the original point: simply because you don't value education doesn't mean others don't.

I got my son a cell phone when he was 8. If I let that sentence stand by itself, I'd be accused of being a worthless, irresponsible parent. But the rest of the story is that I had to get a restraining order against his father, who was making abusive and harassing phone calls (to ME only) 24/7. At the same time, under the terms of the custody agreement, I was prohibited from "interfering" or blocking his contact with his son. Solution: I changed my number to unlisted and got a cell phone for my son, so his dad can talk to HIM any time he wants, but not me.

He currently attends a special dual-credit high school instead of the school in our district; I have to drop him off at a central "transportation hub" point ~20 minutes away every morning, and pick him up every afternoon. By taking his cell phone to school, he's able to let me know when the bus is going to be late, so I don't have to sit in the parking lot for an hour when I could be working (I work from home).

He got caught texting in school in the first month of his freshman year. They confiscated the phone, and required $15 before they'd return it. I personally have a problem with that, as a concept, but it IS in the handbook and he DID know, so I didn't even blink about it... just told him that when he had the $15 he could give it to me and I'd go "bail out" his phone.

It took him a week - and even then it was just his allowance, so it was technically still my money - and I told him that if it happened again, I'd disable texting for good. Since then, he uses his phone only before and after school, and during lunch. I don't think he knows that I can (and do) check his texting activity to see when texts are being sent and received. I think it's just that he knows what the consequences will be.

We had a problem with his friends texting him nonstop - I started him out on the 500/mo plan, and he *received* more than 400 in the first week. He was textless for a week or two, and when I reinstated it he opted to pay the difference to get the unlimited plan. (Most of his friends were stunned to learn that not everyone has unlimited texting.)

Even though he's paying for part of it, he knows that I will take it away if I feel he's being disrespectful of others (i.e. texting during a conversation with an adult) or if his grades or chores start slipping.

What all of this means is that he's learned (though his own experience of receiving too many texts) to be considerate with his own text-sending, to respect the demands on others' time (calling me if the bus is late), that rules have consequences when they're broken, and that even if you're paying for something, you still need to practice common courtesy and self-discipline (chores, grades, conversations).

For every "There's no reason kids should have a cell phone at all" or "Responding by increasing their text limit is ridiculous," there's someone with another side to the story. Blanket statements like that are seldom accurate, when examined. Just about anything can be used productively and responsibly, and used as a teaching moment.

I respect the dad's decision to hammer the phone (in this story) and sympathize with it, but at the same time, I wonder what's going to happen to the daughter when she goes to college... when she hasn't had any practice at management and restraint and self-control, just "on" or "off." It's certainly easier and more attention-getting to forbid behavior outright, than to manage and influence it.. but I wonder if that's the most effective long-term approach.

My Grandparents thought my generation
might have been getting a bit " soft".

We had to get jobs to buy things.

He thought that was funny.

I think he's the weird one.

A lot of my friends had trouble of grasping the concept of getting charged for incoming calls/text when we came here.

@johnva: Its the parent's fault, send the kids home if they can't follow the rules. The teachers should take no guff from students that use a phone in class, but have no right to take away personal property. I would even go as far as to say its illegal and file a lawsuit.

This is how it should be, get caught with a cell phone then you have the choice of giving it up for the remainder of the day or going home.

Schools most certainly do have a right to take personal property (although they probably can't just keep it forever). Legally, they are acting in place of the parent during school hours, and can punish the child just as a parent could. Google/wiki "in loco parentis". They aren't just "government officials" in this case, and they can carry out any punishment as long as it doesn't violate basic civil rights (cellphone confiscation, if temporary, does not).

And I was a good kid otherwise, but prone to spending too much time on the net... to my own detriment. (During exam times, I used to disconnect and put the modem in the attic myself)

@gtrgod01: All, please don't forget that instant message conversations via phone equal one text per line sent and received so some folks could hit it quick with someone else bopping out lines via the pc keyboard on the other end...

@Trai_Dep: Its the internet, i can care less about spelling, grammar or sentence structure, expecially on a website such as this. My scores on college testing (in the 90%) that got me into english 1 and passed with an "a" is all i care about.

Second, like i said, kids will be kids, i will give my son the chance to be responisble and NOT use the phone in class or non-emergency use; but if he can't then i will have to take it away. its NOT the teachers job to take my personal property away, if hes disrupting the class then send him to the office and call me. But don't put a hand on my child or belongings, we let school officials get away with way too much.

@Trai_Dep: Exactly, teachers aren't baby sitters or police, they have no right to take personal property. Its idiot parent willing to give up freedoms and be little sheep and let "officials" do whatever they want. As i said, after the 2nd or 3rd time my child wouldn't not even have a cell phone to begin with, kids will be kids but how does the "good parents" suffer?

List to some these kids talk and you wonder how developmentally challenged they are. Yes, I realize most of them aren't actually challenged. Yes, I know some of you will expect me to now ramble on about the good old days when people used to speak in complete sentences that conveyed complete, coherent thought.

It is a changing culture and changing times. It will be interesting when some of these kids try to apply for work, mortgages, etc... and can't string more than a couple of shorthand letter combinations together at a time.

BTW like OMG IM ROFLCOPTER

Plus, you can actually take text messaging off your plan. I would do that before giving into $20-30 a month to satisfy my teenagers vice. I hope these parents make their children pay for the right to do so.

@zonk7ate9: Regarding that the 300/day included sent and received, if you do the math using the numbers from the article you'll see that she sent 300 and received 300 per day. She sent 10,000 in the month and received about the same. Divide that by 30 to get 333 sent and 333 received per day. But it sepcifically says it was mostly during school, so why did they divide by 30? If you use 20 days, she sent 500 per day and received 500 per day. She sent about 1 per minute (8 hr day), all day, every day... most impressive

It makes a lot more sense when you realize that SMS on GSM uses a part of the protocol reserved to set up phone calls and reserve emergency channels.

It's a very limited resource, so the cellular companies charge through the nose for it since at some point they have to build more towers to increase the amount of data space GSM offers (which is very little). The company could literally have no calls on the cells, and TONS of bandwidth available, but have to implement picocells just to handle the texting bandwidth, lest calls not get through.

Kids (or anyone) that texts this much need a phone with email, like a BlackBerry, which use the data channels (GPRS, EDGE, etc.).

@johnva: @TWinter: @Xerloq: No its you guys that are wrong with the school system, be a parent and do something about it, not let the schools break up the family and be the only enforcement in the household getting your kids ready for a world of people telling them what to do or else.

Besides, my comment isn't to let my child run free texting his heart away, if the school says no sell phone/psp/ds then i tell him not to take it to school, if he does and doesn't obey after the 2nd or 3rd time then i take it with me or lock it up and he can use it when i get home. There i did your parenting for ya, thats what you like right?

It was a female... imagine that.

Before school, lunch, and after homework is fine by me but I catch 'em texting during class and I'll either break the phone or their fingers. Or maybe both. Yes, my children think I am a mean parent. I also make them be polite, brush their teeth, and go to bed at a decent hour, go figure.

@PunditGuy: Depends, I mean unless this is their first month where she's had the phone, clearly previous bills were "acceptable".

I mean if your kid's been using the phone for a couple of months and has only been doing a small amount of texting where it's not worth getting a plan, it could be unexpected when they suddently increase their text useage ten fold or a hundred fold in a single month.

Maybe this kid did this just because she's still a kid and just doesn't get it yet, but cell phone calling and texting seems to be addictive to some people. She could grow up to be the woman who causes a fatal accident because she can't stop texting when she is supposed to be driving.

What he did is bring the problem to their attention. If she is texting that much in school, there must be other kids doing the same thing. I would think this is something the school would want to be made aware of.

It's absurd that it's the teachers that need to straddle the middle ground.

This can be cut off at the pass by parenting! You give the child a cell phone but you make it pre-paid. You teach them that the cell is for emergencies only during the school day and for limited use on the weekends. You are the parent, you make the rules not the child. Imagine if more parents did this? Then you wouldnt have the problem of rampant texting during class, you wouldnt have to ask the school to take the time to do something you should have taught at home.

But putting teachers in a middle ground, when they could be teaching? Absurd.

i have a cruddy memory so i send text messages to my email. sometimes at work i send it to my work email when my boss tells me to remember to do something later. when i get back to my desk, the email reminds me.
or i send it to my personal email address to remind me that tonight is trash night/i need to do laundry/it's time for the dog's heartworm pills

socially.. i text people, i text to twitter, i text to my livejournal. i use my phone for yahoo and aim IM - each line sent/received counts as one message.

i'm nowhere close to being a teenaged girl, but i can see where this would easily rack up the messages. i can get into an active conversation via text message that results in 20 messages sent/received in ten minutes.
if she's doing it all day long..... yeah.

@Ilo: Agreed. Other issues people might have with texting so much aside, costs incurred really shouldn't be one of them. It's ridiculous how expensive texting is, there's no reason for it other than to give the phone companies a huge profit.

@Adrienne Willis: I dont know that this is about lazy parenting. I think it is entirely reasonable to expect schools to have rules against activities that will interfere with learning. If you are texting during class, how is that different from passing notes? It has been a long time since I was in school, but that was considered disruptive behavior and the teacher would ask you to stop, or discipline you.

What really scares me is the fact that I have 4 yo and 2 yo little boys. By the time they are adolescents, text messaging and Twitter will be passe, but you can bet that something even more annoying and expensive will come along to replace them!

If my boys were adolescents now, I would simply forbid them to have phones at school. I don't care how much howling and protest results (I AM the parent after all!), the fact is there is really no practical need for kids to have their own phones at school (if there is a true emergency, school staff will have no problem contacting the student in a timely manner).

When I was that age (am 34 now), we caused similar levels of annoyance amongst the elders by monopolizing the home phone; the current texting obsession is motivated by the exact same factors (teens just like to talk, talk, talk!) it's just that technology has facilitated the ability to engage in these behaviors with significantly fewer practical restrictions than those imposed by having a land-line phone as the only option. The only potential danger is that texting is a rapid, "instant gratification" type of activity with few practical restrictions on its use, which could cause problems in individuals prone to obsessive or compulsive behavior or individuals lacking impulse control (ie. teens!).

What would happen if you went in and told your boss that you've decided to ignore all the workplace rules from now on and that you were going to spend your day surfing porn on your office computer whenever you felt like it? I don't think it would end well.

Of course, she's two, so the time won't be for ten years. Who knows what we'll have by then...

@Adrienne Willis: I did something crazy and read the article. The parents thought that texting had been disabled. It's hard to say if this was an error by the parents or verizon but let's conceded the attempt was at least made. After getting the bill the father distroyed the child's cell phone. Looks like he found a way stop the problem after the first attempt failed.

I would take a guess that his daughter was most likely texting her friends at school so even if the problem directly relating to his daughter had been solved he can't parent the other kids in her class which are most certainly causing a distraction. I don't think it's unreasonable to request that the school enforce some rules.

How about monitoring your children or teaching them appropriate behavior?

Does (what I assume is) a high schooler need a cellphone? The only reason I got one my senior (Class of '03!) year was because I paid for it.

@VideoOrItDidn'tHappen_GitEmSteveDave:
I can see why the daughter was so implused into testing. it does look like that phone has a keyboard on it.

But, no need to take a hammer to it. Just..take it.

This didn't result in a lot of arbitrary confiscations; instead, it resulted in kids keeping their phones put away until after school. What's the problem?

@BeerManMike: And I'm sure your child would ALWAYS do what the BeerMan told him.

@Adrienne Willis: THANK YOU!

I think a lot of my lack of understanding of it is because I'm not a big multitasker (except for reading stuff online while I'm monitoring my work). I prefer to finish tasks sequentially and move on, because I find I do a better job on them like that. I'm intolerant of needless interruptions, which is definitely part of why I don't like texting. I don't like it because it reminds me of someone sitting next to me talking to me constantly, all day, while I try to do my work.

If you really need to say something important, just call! My mom, at 42 likes to text message, yet isn't too keen on the internet (she still thinks its 1995 and the internet is the wild west!) I really don't get it.

I think parents should set a text limit with their kids (500/month or whatever) and teach kids how to check the limits and make them pay for any overages. It is a good way to teach them the overage lesson BEFORE their first debit card.

There is a positive side to all the texting...they aren't using call minutes. My two teenage daughters, between them, send and receive around 15000 texts a month. Costs me 10 dollars. They use practically no minutes. It's the way they prefer to communicate. Seems like a step back to me, but what do I know? Their kids will probably be sending morse code again. One of the things that I like about my blackberry is the full keyboard for precisely that reason, so I can communicate with my own kids.

Oh, and when I was still fighting this trend, I discussed with t-mobile having texting turned off. This was a couple of years ago, and it may have changed since then, but they refused. Said that was how t-mobile communicated to their customers, so it was mandatory. I have been a customer of theirs since they were still called voicestream, and I have never received a text message from the company.

The school should not be responsible for your parenting. Strictly enforce AT HOME that there will be no texting/phone calls during the school day. Find ways to limit their plan or not include texting at all for that phone.

That's probably called a Verizon Rep wanting commission in your case.

Its amazing how tolorable everyone is about schools taking personal property from your child. Im going to instruct my son to NOT let anyone take their phone, ipod, personal stuff EVER and if the teacher has a problem then they can call me. Also if in-house suspension or detention is given for such a thing then my child will be told NOT to serve it and he can stay at the house for the day.

Although i don't forsee anything like this happening becuase i would be A FREAKIN' PARENT and set rules for my child instead of the school doing it for me.

If you can afford to give your teen a cell phone, you can afford to add unlimited messaging to your plan. Because you probably CAN'T afford a $4,000/month bill.

I've noticed a serious decline in detail and nuance in news reporting in the last few years, and I'm not so sure we should go further down that road. I think we need less superficial, ultra-speed information, and more in-depth, substantive information (still as fast as possible). Maybe I'm weird like that, but I like to actually understand the details behind things I'm reading.

BUT if a person is spending the majority of their day gaming, IM'ing (non business) or texting (non business) you would have to agree they are neglecting some other aspect of their lives, usually parts that are WAY more important. In this girls case school work since her grades tanked. People that spend all their time IM'ing, texting and gaming haven't learned how to properly prioritize their life yet.

Of course, like others have said, most of them are so good at texting that they can keep the phone in their lap, under their desk and pretend to be paying attention, but really be texting the kid next to them. Luddite that I am, I just look on in awe.

@nakedscience:
OMG! What the hell did kids do before cell phones existed?

Last summer, I blocked text messages on my daughter's phone after she sent/received over 3000 in one month, 800 of which were billable and cost me over $140. One person suggested I just get her unlimited text messages, which is completely ridiculous. It wasn't so much the money, but the fact that chores weren't getting done, yet she had time to send and read 3000 text messages. It's about teaching her self-control, not rewarding her for being a slacker.

Plus, I got sick of hearing "I'm waiting for so-and-so to text me back" when plans were being made. Pick up the phone, dial the number and TALK!

I don't understand why schools tolerate texting in class. My son's school prohibits the use of cell phones altogether during school hours - if you are caught, they take your phone to the main office and your parent has to get it for you after school.

man, that's insane. when i was in high school, anyone caught with a pager (almost no one had cell phones) had it confiscated immediately.

i don't get why parents allow their kids to have cell phones at such young ages. almost none of us had phones in middle school or even high school. if there's an emergency, have the parents call the school. the kid can use the phone in the office.

I just hope some happy camper from Child Protective Services doesn't see the smashed phone....

I love the idea of "Amishville" as a punishment. Real leverage when kids live and breathe technology.

@johnva: Because not everyone wants to type a lengthy email. I use email, text, and Twitter (although my texts and tweets are nowhere near this girl or the average teenager) and i find that texts are more efficient than email when you want to have a rapid back and forth IM style conversation and you want immediate feedback. When I want to express myself in more detail, I send an email.

I also think that texting is closer to spoken conversation than written (it's no accident that that's become a popular conversational mode in the deaf community). It's treated as real-time, and large numbers of those messages are the equivalent of "Uh-huh," "Really?!" or just a head nod indicating you've heard. It's about the connection, not the message.

I can see from some of the comments that texting OCD is not limited to teenage girls. Seriously, some non-teenage girls send 15K texts a month? Quite frankly, I'm shocked at how some people apparently don't have better things to do than keep their head buried in their phone.

A woman I know told me recently that she rarely uses her phone for actually (voice) talking to people. Silly.

When leveraged in conjunction with more traditional reporting (i.e. - filing a full story), it's a good way to combine real-time reporting with the full story detail and nuance that you referenced. Best of both worlds + a pair of sprained thumbs, LOL.

In February 2008 my then 15 year old daughter racked up 21,700 (no typo) texts and still pulled of straight A's.

Needless to say, upon further review, the during school hours and middle of the night texting practices were rather firmly rendered unacceptable.

Now reformed she averages about 4,700 a month.

Thank God we had unlimited texting.

Also, I think there's a difference between a limited number of professions, like journalism, that might have a real reason to use that many for work, and everyone else doing it.

If the school/teacher/moron in front of the class doesn't care you are buried in your phone the entire time, hell just dial the number and talk. The moron in front of the class obviously doesn't care if you're learning in the first place so you might as well just get the conversation over with more quickly and be done with it.

Dena should have to get a job to pay off the bill, that's what my parents would have done if cell phones existed back in the day. My fault, my bill, I get to pay it off by working baby-sitting, dog-walking and other jobs.

We're not exactly need-based these days. It's just clearer to us when it's an extravagance we don't ourselves engage in.

"Dena Christoffersen, 13, had apparently been sending most of these messages at school."

So, no, they wouldn't necessarily notice.

I'm in my 20's. And I do send text messages; I'm not a Luddite. I'm just having trouble comprehending the teen culture of sending anywhere near this many. Even 10 a day seems like a lot for me, because I don't find the text messaging format all that useful for most tasks other than coordinating meetups with friends, etc when I'm away from home. As you may have noticed from my comments here, I prefer to type messages that are a little bit more extended, and I find it difficult and impractical to do that on a phone, even one with a QWERTY keyboard. E-mail is just a better medium for me 99% of the time.

@jamar0303: i have verizon and i think it's $5 a month for unlimited texting, maybe 10.

@johnva: i can't believe any schools actually allow texting. if they do a lot of people in that town need to be fired.

I think they probably let them retroactively upgrade to the $10 plan. Texting is virtually 0 overhead and I'm guessing they didn't lock it down on their account and the girl just figured it out one day

The obvious question here is....how on earth did YOU put up with her phone going off once every 2 mintues for every waking minute you were with her??

@johnva: Nope, just actively engaged with various females who are very into texting . . . but basically, yes, instant messaging type deal . . .

@friendlynerd: Heheheh.. Turn your social butterfly into a nerdy firefly.

@johnva: Those totals always include your imcoming ones as well; you get charged to recieve them as well. So she really sent only about 150 text messages. You guys must be much older and not have teenage kids. My sister uses about 15,000 texts per month which means shes using closer to 500 a day (again 500 is the total of sent + recieved).

seriously though, I was at a friend's house and they introduced their middle school daughter to us. From the second we walked in the door we heard her phone go off about 5 times before we met the girl. We got eye contact once during the entire 4 hours we were at their house and the girl couldn't wrest her hand away from her phone long enough to even shake our hands. It was non stop.

It was rude and quite frankly a little disturbing. I was on IM quite a bit when I was in college and after, but nothing to that extreme. I consider my self a gadget guy and computer nerd but my kids are definitely going to have a lot of restrictions on that stuff. especially the awkward conversation we will have about sexting before I let them use a phone that has texting enabled.

@docrice: Dude, teens.

Also, kids don't need phones until they're old enough to drive? Really? What if they are on public transportation? What if they walk to and from school? What if they have a lot of after-school-activities? Some parents feel more comfortable when their kids hae an easy way to contact them.

The easiest solution is to buy a phone that blocks kids from making insane amounts of texts, and there are phones out there that will only let the phone call out to certain people.

!!!

At that point it would almost seem like texting is a bigger part of your social life than actual human interaction. I don't get it.

911
Home
Mom's Cell
Dad's Cell
Grandma and Grandpa

"The girl's parents, Gregg and Jaylene Christoffersen, thought texting had been disabled, so one can imagine their surprise when they got the monthly phone bill and it asked for $4,756.25."

Verizon did this to me and my husband. We had texting blocked on our phones, as in we COULD NOT receive text messages, but when we got new phones, Verizon for some reason ($$$) removed the "no texting" block. So we started receiving texts again and getting charged for them. I had to call and yell at them to replace the block on texting and remove the charges for the texts.

So, Verizon probably screwed up. If a block had been in place, Dena should not have been able to receive text messages (I don't know about sending them). The parents should look into this.

As for schools, there are schools that tolerate texting in class???? WTF? When I was in high school, they would confiscate your phone for a week if they even saw it, ever.

Wasn't there an article talking about how texting costs the providors absolutely nothing?

Why haven't we heard for a call to reform or something if they are charging for something that doesn't cost them anything at all?

@valarmorghulis: they worked with me as well. Allowed me to backdate even to the previous month an unlimited plan. And I would be able to downgrade again if I chose to.

i send/receive approximately 2000-2500 a month. unlimited txt plans ftw.

His school's policy is, I think, a good one: if you're caught your parents have to come to school to retrieve your phone.

What's more obscene is that text messaging charges are essentially pure profit for the wireless companies. They cost them close to zero to transmit.

@johnva: There isn't any reason to do it. I wonder what her text rate was before - I can't imagine that this wa her first month with a phone.

I'm just glad to see a report of parents being parents - they took action to correct their child, sought to try and work things out with Verizon, and are trying to work with the school to enforce established policies - rather than simply demanding that Verizon reduce their bill and blaming the school. And, based on her grades, we now have some anecdotal data that cell phone use during school hours (well, texting) leads to lower performance.

@docrice: I sent and rec'd just over 1k yesterday . . .

@nakedscience: I think the question was less of "is it physically possible?" than "what the hell can you need to send and receive 300 messages a day for/about?".

Kids don't need phones until they're old enough to drive.

His request to have the school crack down on cell phone use was the right response. There are too many parents who would have tried to place much of the blame on the school system.

no one got cell service in my high school

Good for Verizon to be willing to work with them on this. I think this could end up being a good life lesson to the daughter...after the bill is paid.

@johnva: It's not that impossible if you have a QWERTY keyboard and are fast at it.

@johnva: This is yet another instance in which I am thankful to be so painfully unhip.

I guess this is why I don't "get" Twitter, either.