Happy Birthday Texting
By: Bill Palmer
Updated: December 3, 2012
Today is a special anniversary. Twenty years ago today a man in England sent the greeting "Merry Christmas" from his computer to his colleague's cell phone.
It's hard to imagine a world without texting. It is the single most widely used application in the world, and eighty-one percent of mobile phone subscribers use it.
It took a few years, but with the advent of smart phones, texting took off as the way to communicate.
Parents use texting as an easy way to keep in touch with children, but the age bracket with the highest usage is 18-to-24 year olds.
But this new way of communicating is creating a few new problems.
It seems some students use the abbreviations in some of the papers they write, or they have trouble putting the phone away during class.
Sometimes the tone of a text is taken the wrong way, or people are caught texting people they shouldn't be, ending a relationship.
But everyone agrees texting is much less intrusive than listening to someone talk on the phone.
