Since recently one of the most fortunate developments in the history of mobile, the text messaging system, turned 25, we asked if you still text instead of chat, now that 2017 is closing to an end. Teens have been compulsive texters for a while now, sending sometimes a hundred messages per day, but these were stats from two or three years ago, and Snapchats may have taken over. Well, it turns out they didn't, as almost half of our respondents say they still text very often, while less than a quarter text rarely. We'll see if the Animoji trend spices things up enough for texting to stop its unrepentant year-on-year growth here in the US.
Developed as part of a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) project for Vodafone UK in 1992, it was initially meant as a way to deliver testing and carrier messages, but the Finns from Radiolinja noted the potential, and were the first to offer it as a retail person-to-person SMS text messaging service to its subscribers in 1994.
The rest is history, and, contrary to popular belief, the switch to iMessage, WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat, Skype, Viber and the like, hasn't put much of a dent on the increase of the number of text messages sent in the US each year, as you can see in the Statistic Brain's table below.
In the era of Snapchat and Animoji, good ol' texting is still on the rise
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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
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