One of the first warning signs of a burgeoning texting addiction problem is when you find yourself updating your phone plan to accommodate more texting freedom. Most basic phone plans allow for 100 to 250 free text messages monthly. This allowance is more than sufficient for a normal amount of texting. Even if you are exceedingly popular with your friends, you should not be texting more than a hundred texts a month. If you are texting more than 250 text messages a month then you are texting too much.
You should not be texting the same person every single day. If you have an allowance of 100 free texts per month in a 30 day month that enables you to send more than 3 texts a day! Let’s say you text someone every other day or 15 days of the month, then you have to be texting more than 6 times every other day to go over your limit. Texting 6 times a day is a lot. If you are texting one person that many times then you may be setting the stage for a text problem with them. Saying hello to someone daily can become awfully mundane. Honestly, you should not have to talk to someone that much and if you do need to talk to them that much then you should cover it with a phone call rather than text messages.
250 free texts per month
Most phone plans allow the base texting package to include 250 text messages a month. That is more than enough texting for one person. That gives you more than 8 text messages a day! Even if you have three best friends to text you could be texting them each two or three times daily and still be under your limits. Some high school and college kids are real junkies and go up to 500 text messages a month. Think about it. 500 messages a month? That is a whole lot of texting! Do you really want to spend that much time on text messaging?
Updating you plan to allow for Unlimited texting
On of the biggest warning signs that you have a text problem is when you go from a typical allowance of a few hundred free text messages a month to an unlimited plan. Usually you get a few hundred free texts for about five dollars a month. An unlimited plan which includes however many texts and photos that you want to send will cost you around twice that. Granted it is not too much money so you can rationalize going to unlimited. The price however is really not the point. You have to think about reality which is that you can’t seem to get by without sending and receiving hundreds of texts a month. Seriously no matter what your age and how big your group of friends it is too much text.
Once you find yourself crossing the boundary line and having to get an unlimited texting package to allow for more texts, don’t ignore what that means. Plain and simple it means you are texting too much in your relationships. No matter how much you rationalize to yourself that unlimited is more economical because it stops overuse charges, don’t ignore that a problem is imminent. Nobody should have to text message more than a few hundred times a month. If you find you are, try executing the 2 day rule. Can you stop texting for 2 days time? If not, that pretty much tells you that you are relying way too much on text.
Changing your text plan to accommodate texting in a new friendship, relationship or romance
I hate to break the news but that innocent step of having to expand your text package to a bigger one is often the first sign of texting addiction problems to come. Another point to highlight is that expanding of the plan often goes hand in hand with a new relationship or breakup. You have to expand the plan to allow for more communication with respect to that relationship. Well, that relationship might be involving too much texting. If your previous phone plan can’t accommodate your texting of a new boyfriend or love interest then consider that a warning. You don’t want new relationships to happen on text.
If a new relationship expands your texting so much that you actually have to upgrade to a new text package then you are texting too much with that person. It’s a little hint that your relationship may have the makings of becoming an unhealthy one. Especially when it comes to romance someone genuinely interested in you will take the time to call you. You won’t be texting ten times a day because that, when you really think about it, is just a little bit weird. If you find yourself having to text that much you may becoming too depending on this person or vice versa. Again, dependence and co-dependency are the hallmarks of dysfunctional relationships.
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