SMS or short messaging service began with the first text being sent two decades ago in 1992. It was then made commercially available to cell phone users from 1995. Traditional text messaging only allows 160 characters of texting. Nowadays however, smartphones with its numerous texting applications have changed traditional texting and it is no longer limited to 160 characters alone. The number of characters was limited thinking that it gave sufficient length for people to express themselves as it was approximately same as the length of a postcard message.

Some of the interesting facts about texting are:

The idea of text messaging is said to have been originally derived from paging. While pagers were capable of receiving numbers only; turning certain numbers upside down to resemble words gave way to the idea of text messaging. For example, 07734 were considered a pager number for ‘˜Hello’.

Ninety five percent of the people who use texting as a mode of communication fall within the age group of 18 to 29 years.

The time considered to be the peak hours of texting is 10:30am to 11:30pm at night.

According to numerous surveys that have been conducted, approximately 50% of adults worldwide prefer texting to a phone call.

Every year cell phone companies earn profits of up to 60-70 billion dollars from the activity of texting alone.

Although texting is such a widely used mode of communication, spamming through texting accounts to a mere 10% whereas e-mails continue to be the major mode of spamming which accounts to 65%.

Modern day cell phones come with T9 predictive technology that offers a list of suggestive words while texting to help in faster texting.
However, correcting texts have also been a cause for inconvenience while texting.

‘˜Sexting’ is a term used for texting that involves exchanging of sexually explicit photographs or videos. In spite of the knowledge of how dangerous and unsafe sexting is, approximately 1 out of 5 teenagers engage in sexting, the maximum being 17 year olds. Not only teens but adults and parents alike are also guilty at times of sexting.

People have time and again been warned against talking or texting on the phone while driving. Pedestrians and drivers are 23 times more likely to have an accident if they engage in texting. Statistics reveal that about 1.4 million car crashes take place every year, 200,000 of which account to texting.

Texting while driving would be equivalent to the reaction time slowed down like a 70 year old person driving. Yet approximately 77% people have admitted that they engage in texting while driving.

A successful life-saving surgery was performed by David Nott when he was volunteering in Congo with the help of text messaging.
Step-by-step instructions were sent to him for the performance of the surgery from a colleague.

According to a survey men text more than women. Also, men text over matters relating to practical issues and messages are therefore shorter in length as opposed to those of women who discuss relationships over texts.

Texting today is such a widely used mode of communication that surveys have revealed that people would rather text and communicates than converse with their friends and relatives over a phone call.