In today’s not-shocking news, researchers have determined that teenagers like to text–a lot.

The new study by the Pew Center shows that the mobile phone has become the preferred mode of communication for American teens, with one in three teens sending more than 100 texts a day. Also in the category of not-shocking, the researchers found that older teenage girls are the most enthusiastic texters.

Some of the key findings:

• The study points out that cell phone ownership among 12- to 17-year-olds has spiked, going up from 45 percent in 2004 to 75 percent this year.
• With cell phones at their disposal, the teens were also more likely to text than call, although the majority still turned to an old-fashioned phone call when it came time to communicate with mom and dad.
• Half of the teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month, and one in three sends more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month.
• Older girls who text are the most active, with 14- to 17-year-old girls typically sending 100 or more messages a day or more than 3,000 texts a month.

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The next time you come across a loudmouth yammering away into a cell phone at top volume, be comforted by the fact that researchers are working on a mobile phone that could put an end to “volume-control challenged” people. The lip-reading phone would allow people to silently mouth their words–but the electrode-heavy prototype seems unlikely to catch on anytime soon.

The BBC reports:

The device, on show at the Cebit electronics fair in Germany, relies on a technique called electromyography which detects the electrical signals from muscles. It is commonly used to diagnose certain diseases, including those that involve nerve damage.

Professor Tanja Shultz of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany explained that the device requires attaching nine sensors to the face. As the user mouths words, the electrodes capture the electric impulses created by the muscle movement. These impulses are transferred to a device that records and amplifies them, before passing them onto a laptop via wireless. Software in the laptop translates the signals, converting them into words which can then be read out by a synthesizer in handset and sent over the wire to the person on the other end of the phone call.

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