Texting isn’t just about teens anymore – today is the twentieth birthday of text messaging. The quick and oft-used method of communication is all grown up, but it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. Let us reflect upon and celebrate the great gift of portable and nigh-immediate transcontinental communication in written form. The first text message was sent on December 3, 1992 by Neil Papworth. Texting began as a novel concept to send quick and short messages; an astounding 150 billion Short Message Services (SMS) were sent last year in Britain alone.
To give you an idea of how impressive and widespread this technology has become, here’s a reference point: according to the CTIA, The Wireless Association, over two trillion text messages are sent each year. I know that seems like a big number, and it is, but consider how many wasted sheets of paper these seemingly superfluous text messages save. Texting might have crept into a hidden niche in the world, and continues to expand, so this tech’s birthday should be celebrated. Make sure to spam all of your friends under the guise of “education.”
Businesses can utilize SMS to better market themselves via coupons in that format that are 10 times more likely to be utilized and nonprofit organizations prey on impulsive empathetic thumb punches, but at the end of the day, typing out secret messages to each other is something that’s incredibly and simply convenient. If you told me 20 years ago that instead of calling someone on a magic voice box, that I could use the same contraption to type a message instead, I might have shot the messenger.
Happy twentieth birthday, texting! One more year and our carriers can start drunk testing us.
Comments are closed.