New York Times - Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls By JENNA WORTHAM

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Highlights

• Almost 90 percent of households in the United States now have a cellphone.
• The number of text messages sent per user increased by nearly 50 percent nationwide last year, according to the CTIA, the wireless industry association.
• For the first time in the United States, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cellphone calls, industry executives and analysts say.
• When people do talk on their phones, their conversations are shorter; the average length of a local call was 1.81 minutes in 2009, compared with 2.27 minutes in 2008, according to CTIA.
• American teenagers have been ahead of the curve for a while, turning their cellphones into texting machines; more than half of them send about 1,500 text messages each month, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project.

Thoughts

1. Cell phone companies are going to have to keep expanding phones to be capable of doing everything. People want to have the option to update facebook, twitter, email all on their phone. Only a matter of time before everyone phone will have full personal computer functionality.
   
2. Texting while driving has become such a dangerous habit, with the increase of texting it will only be a matter of time before voice and text are integrated, allowing users to speak and hear their text messages.
3. The price markup on texting for the carriers is so huge, they will continue to promote and encourage texting.