Tina's 2012 Report

Dan Meyer set out this challenge last week.  If he'd timed it better, I would have shared his video from 2009 with my students when I assigned this project (updated slightly, if the new version seems substantially better when I get around to grading them I'll blog about the changes).  There's always next year!

It took me a bit to find the place to download my phone data, so if you have AT&T I'll save you the hassle, (look for instructions at the end of this post).  Otherwise this was a fun exercise and a walk down memory lane!

 Question: Is it worth it to change my 200 text message limit?

Observations: The months I travel (summer, December, February) are also the ones that I communicate the most.  I had 3 sets of visitors in October of 2011, but nearly half of the calls are to/from numbers I don't recognize.  Not sure what that says about my month!

My parents call me regularly (I should be a better daughter and call them too, but I hate the phone...).  If I'd counted minutes rather than number of calls they would be much farther in the lead. However, my dad and I exchanged a total of 11 text messages over 17 months and my mom has never sent a text message (although we do chat on words with friends - that almost counts!).

The other people are friends who I both talk and text with.  Although truth be told, I'd rather see them in person and short of that prefer email.  Unsurprisingly the people I communicate with the most are also the ones I see the most.  This fact is the most obvious when you consider my amazing PCMI roommate Ashli.

(PCMI is in July but my billing period ends on the 10th so
 the PCMI data is split between June and July)

Ashli and I apparently only communicate via phone when we're in the same place.  Otherwise twitter and email work just fine!





Now it's your turn!  If you have AT&T follow these steps:
Direct link (log in and then go to this link again)

If that doesn't work:

1. log in to AT&T
2. from the menu across the top choose "My AT&T" then "Bill & Payments" then "Bill Details"
3. scroll down to find your phone, click "usage details"
4. scroll down, click "download call details" at the top right of the chart
5. now choose CSV and download month by month

Choose CSV if you have a mac, Numbers told me the xls version was tab delimited and didn't work