On the 20th anniversary of the sending of the first text, an Ofcom study has found 90 per cent of 16 to 24–year–olds use the method daily to communicate with friends and family, compared with 63 per cent who talk to others face to face.
Talking by telephone was also less popular than texting with only 67 per cent saying they make daily calls.
The first text was sent on Dec 3, 1992, when Neil Papworth, a British engineer used his computer to send the message “Merry Christmas” to an Orbitel 901 mobile phone. According to research by Ofcom, the media regulator, the average Briton now sends around 50 text messages every week. In 2011, more than 150 billion text messages were sent in the UK, which was almost triple the amount sent five years previously.
The Communications Market Report 2012 also found that texting was most prolific among 12 to 15–year–olds, who send an average of 193 texts every week.
Info: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
