The Science Of Parental Text Messages

What are your text conversations with your mother like (assuming your mom even bothers to text, of course)? Well, one guy decided to take a scientific approach to looking at his mother's texts, and the results are fascinating. Because charts just make everything seem cooler. Science, right?

It's common knowledge that most parents aren't the best texters — there are, in fact, lots of funny lists illustrating just how bad parents can be at texting. They frequently don't understand normal abbreviations; they don't double check their autocorrect; and I'm pretty sure my dad spent several years convinced that proper texting behavior essentially meant never using vowels. Still, even though we all like to lovingly mock our parents for their texting behavior (though mine are both pretty good at it these days, I must say), the most important part of texting your parents is what you all actually say.

Trying to get down to the bottom of that, Ian T. Sommers ran some analyses on his text conversations with his mother, looking not at the style, but at the content. What he found was actually pretty interesting, so here — let's take a look.

Apparently he and his mother text most frequently when they're far away — the number of texts per month spiked hugely both when he went abroad and when he moved to "the city" (although which city isn't specified). This makes a certain amount of sense: When you feel far away from someone, it's natural to want to maintain the kind of semi-constant but still casual contact that texting can give you.

Sommers also found that the two of them used the word "love" a lot more in months that included one of their birthdays — and that he actually used the word "sorry" more than the word "love." His mom also sends more messages than he does, but his messages tend to be slightly longer.

And in looking at their most common words to each other, his include "yeah," "okay," and "sure," helping to prove that we never stop being teenagers when it comes to out parents. Her most common words to him, on the other hand, include "call," "just," and "yes."

So what would your text relationship with your parents look like if someone graphed it? Something to think about...

Images: @IanTSommers/dadaviz.com (5)