Text Message Analytics — Numbers
People communicate a lot through text messages, and lucky for me iPhones keep track of those text messages I’ve sent. iPhones store your text messages in a SQLite database, and this database is readily accessible in your iPhone backup on your computer. [This is why encrypting your backup might be a good idea if you have sensitive data.] I want to eventually perform some advanced text analytics to try to interpret the content of the text message. This post is only going to look at the ‘numbers’ aspect of my text messages. All the numbers on the following pages include both sent and received texts, and excludes texts that I either deleted or where deleted by the system. [I know I’ve deleted threads. I don’t think iOS deletes old messages, but it’s a possibility till I know otherwise.]
The most simple stat from text messages is how many have I sent/received per day or per week. The chart below has both. The notable trend is that there has been more text messages sent/received the longer I’ve had my iPhones. I’d suggest this is a little biases since I would be more likely to delete text threads that are much older, but I still think there would be the slight trend upwards regardless.
I wanted to look at area codes just out of curiosity. I thought that I would have the most texts between me and a 412 or 724 number. I’m a little surprised how many 412 numbers there are given how many people I know living in the Pittsburgh suburbs and I’m a 724. I think 412 is Allegheny County, while 724 is anything outside of that. I’m little surprised how close traditional SMS text messages, which go through your carrier network opposed over the Internet, since most of my friends have iPhones.
The last chart is my favorite, a breakdown of how often I text for each hour of the day. I think this tells you something about my behavior, albeit nothing common sense won’t tell you. I generally text earlier in the morning (7am to 10am) more often during the work week compared to the weekend. There’s a spike at 12PM (lunch time) and 9PM (making plans/socializing) for any day of the week. There’s virtually no texting between 4am and 6am. There are some texts that occur after the ‘Ted-Mobsy-Hour’ of 2am, where nothing good happens after that time, but not a spike like there might have been in college.
‘Kids, if it’s after 2am, don’t text, just go home….and watch How I Met Your Mother.’