Kids getting cellphones at younger ages

Quick, take a guess: what's the average age American kids are getting their first cellphones? 10? 12? 14?

According to data out today from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, most are 12 or 13. But hold on, there, before you go ripping the phone from your 10-year-old's fingers. According to Pew, while none of the 17-year-olds in the survey got phones when they were 11 or younger, more than half of today's 12-year-olds had phones when they were 11 or younger.

So, the times are a'changing, and it appears most parents today think it's ok to give their kid a phone by the time they turn 11. What do you think? When did your kid get his or her first phone? Are 11-year-olds mature enough to have cellphones?

Average teen texts 50 times a day

If you're the parent of a teenager with a cellphone, this won't come as news to you, but a new study just out says youngsters ages 12-17 send and receive five times as many texts per day as adults. According to the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, teens send and receive about 50 texts per day, compared to about 10 a day for adults.

Also in the report:

• Texting by adults has increased over the past nine months from 65 percent of adults sending and receiving texts to 72 percent.
• Five percent of all adult texters send more than 200 text messages per day, or more than 6,000 a month. By comparison, 15 percent of teens use texts more than 200 times a day.
• The average adult cell phone owner makes and receives about five voice calls per day.
• Some 65 percent of adults with cellphones say they have slept with the phone on or right next to their bed.

How does your (or your teen's) cellphone usage compare to the averages here? And if you fall into the 200-plus club, what in the world are you texting about so frequently??