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Friday 7 September 2018

Text messaging

Text messaging or Short Message Service (SMS) is a type of communication used in mobile phones. A generation of communicators have devised their own shorthand, textspeak, to stay in touch.


Neil Papworth sent the first (unabbreviated) text on December 3, 1992. The 22-year-old British engineer had been working as a developer and test engineer to create a Short Message Service (SMS) for his client, Vodafone. He used a personal computer to send his message to Vodafone director Richard Jarvis who received it on an Orbitel 901 handset. It read: "MERRY CHRISTMAS".

The first commercially sold SMS service was offered to consumers, as a person-to-person text messaging service by Finnish GSM operator Radiolinja (now part of Elisa) in 1993.

Friedhelm Hillebrand is a German engineer who has been influential in setting mobile telecommunications standards. Back in 1985, he conducted experiments to determine the length needed for text messages and found that 160 characters was sufficient.

By Scared Poet (user Scaredpoet, scaredpoet.com)

Text messaging exploded in the late 1990s and now millions of messages are sent every day. SMS is now the most widely used data application, with an estimated 3.5 billion active users, or about 80% of all mobile subscribers, at the end of 2010.

Filipinos send more than 30 million text messages per day, which is more than all of Europe and the USA combined.

SMS can be slow, as normal calls take priority over sending text messages on a network.


The Nokia tone for an incoming SMS text message is the Morse code for 'SMS'.

Texiety is a condition in which an individual feels anxious after not receiving or sending any text messages.

"Textaphrenia" is thinking a text message has arrived when it hasn't.

"Text neck" is a term chiropractors use for patients suffering from neck, back and shoulder pain due to hunching over while texting.

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