The short version
We gave roughly 1,000 American smartphone users a brutal hypothetical: spend one month without drinking any alcohol, or one month without sending or receiving a single text. 88.5% chose to give up alcohol. Only 11.5% were willing to surrender their text messages for 30 days.
For nearly nine in ten Americans, a dry month is the easier sacrifice than a silent one.
Why this is more revealing than it looks
A month without alcohol is a recognized, even celebrated, challenge — Dry January is a cultural institution that millions do voluntarily every year. A month without texting has no such tradition, because for most people it’s close to unthinkable. Texting isn’t a habit you cut back on; it’s the wiring of modern life.
~14 million American adults attempt Dry January every year. A “Dry Texting January” has never been attempted — because almost no one would sign up.
The youngest adults are the most attached
Willingness to give up alcohol over texting is high in every group and peaks among the youngest — though the preference for keeping texting stays remarkably steady across ages.
Women are even less willing to give up texting
Women were the most committed to keeping texting — 91% would give up alcohol first. It fits a pattern that runs through the whole series: on communication-specific questions, women lean on text more than men do.
It lines up with how people want to communicate
This isn’t really about drinking. It’s about how completely texting has replaced the alternatives as the default way Americans stay in touch. Take it away and you don’t lose a luxury — you lose your line to nearly everyone you know.
What it means for business
The channel customers refuse to give up is the one many businesses still treat as an afterthought. If people would sooner go a month dry than a month without texting, a brand that can’t be reached by text is missing the one line its customers protect above almost everything else.