Solana Beach, California (CNN) -- I dont tlk on th fone. txt im fb me.





I tried to reach my teenage daughter the other day. I left a voice mail, sent an e-mail message and finally texted her and told her to check both and call me back.





Seconds later, she texted back one letter: "K." She is 19 and has been sending and receiving upwards of 3,000 texts per month. One month, she hit 7,500! She is not unusual at all.





According to Nielsen Mobile, in the first quarter of 2009, the average U.S. teen made and received an average of 191 phone calls and sent and received 2,899 text messages per month. By the third quarter, the number of texts had jumped to a whopping 3,146 messages per month, which equals more than 10 texts per every waking non-school hour. (At the beginning of 2007, those numbers were 255 phone calls and 435 text messages.) Preteens sent and received 1,146 texts per month.





My daughter doesn't answer her phone because to her, it is no longer a phone.





We are in the midst of four distinct generations of Americans: Baby Boomers (born 1946-64), Generation X (1965-79), Net Generation (1980-89) and the new iGeneration (born in the 1990s and beyond and given the "i" designation to represent media such as iPods and the Wii but also to reflect the "individualized" nature of their media).





Until recently, "communicate" meant to talk face-to-face or on the phone. But both the Net Generation and the iGeneration have turned the concept of communication upside down. The old ways are, well, old. It is now all about texting, IMing, Facebooking, Skype-ing -- pretty much anything but talking live or on the phone.





I know that this is alarming to many, but quite honestly, people must recognize that this is the way it is now and is going to be -- at least until the next new form of e-communication bursts into our world. If you have a teenager (or even a preteen), for example, you must learn how to text, or you two will never "connect." To this generation, it is all about connection, but those connections are, for the most part, electronic.





It is important to note that although experts agree about the two older generations, not everyone agrees on "defining" the last two generations. They are called Generation Y and Millennials by some and, as far as their demarcation dates, well, that is open to fierce discussion.





From my research with 3,000 Americans, the final two generations are defined not by a letter or by their birth year but by their use of technology and media, their need and ability to multitask, their rapid acceptance of anything new and their view of the meaning of technology. All of which lead to differences in personal and work values and often to disharmony in the family, school and the workplace.





In my research, we query people about daily media activities as well as those they choose during free time. We find striking generational differences.





Older teens and Net Geners spend more than 20 hours per day using media. This is accomplished not by not sleeping but with considerable multitasking, which peaks at seven simultaneous activities for older teens.





Setting aside music (with its omnipresent ear buds), preferred media choices differ dramatically across generations: For children, it's television; for tweens, it's video games; for teens, it's texting and social networking; and for Net Geners and Gen Xers, it's being online. And for Boomers, it's, of course, back to television.





The roots of these differences lie in the origin and pace of technological change, particularly among the most recent generations. Net Geners were early adopters of the Internet, which they came to view as a valuable tool.





iGeners, however, are different. They know no other world than that of the
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four of 191 phone calls and sent and received 2,899 text messages per month. four 2,899
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