CNN) -- Grown-ups don't text as much as teens -- at least not yet. A new survey suggests they may be catching up.

About 72 percent of adult mobile phone users send text messages with their phones, according to a report released Thursday from the Pew Research Center. That's up from 65 percent just a year ago.

About 87 percent of teenagers use their phones to tap out messages to each other, the survey said. And they're way busier. Teens send an average of 50 text messages a day, five times more than the 10 that adults send daily.

"Texting among adults has reached the mainstream ... ," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist at the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the author the report. "Of course, none of these adult groups hold a candle to teens when it comes to texting, who swamp adults in messages sent per day by a factor of five."

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