OMG. Dat u mom?
Yes, it is. Parents are horning in on their teenagers’ lives through text messaging. Sending shorthand cellphone messages used to be the province of the younger set — under the dinner table, in the car, at all hours of the night.
Now, parents are responding with their own quick dispatches — “RU there,” “Running L8” — and becoming the fastest-growing demographic in text messaging, which is one of the biggest areas of the mobile-phone industry.
Parents frequently follow their children into technology, setting up pages on MySpace and Facebook social-networking sites, for example, in a bid to become their “friends.” Parental text messaging is outstripping the growth rate among younger generations. In the past two years, use of the technology by those ages 45 to 54 increased 130 percent, according to M:Metrics, a market-research firm.
