Text Messaging Sees Massive Growth – Good or Bad?

You may have already known how much Americans love text messaging considering the number of messaging devices flooded into the mobile industry. But the actual figure still caught our attention when it come out – 4.1 billion texts are sent by Americans everyday!

CTIA – the Wireless Association, recently released the results of its semi-annual study of the wireless industry, which found that a total of 740 billion SMS messages were sent in the U.S. for the first half of 2009. To break down the figures, it means American wireless subscribers send 4.1 billion messages per day, which is nearly twice as many as the number a year ago.

Meanwhile, the study shows that U.S. cell phone users are sending more multimedia messages (including picture, voice and video messages) with their mobile devices. For the first six months of the year, 10.3 billion MMS messages were created, significantly up from 4.7 billion during the same period in 2008.

The year-over-year boom of text messages explains why handset vendors keep on rolling out keyboard-equipped handsets, despite the fact that this segment is already crowded with many messaging-centric devices. For example, Samsung has recently strengthened its lineup with the Flight and the Moment; Motorola has introduced two Android-powered sliders, the DROID and the CLIQ; and HTC has brought us the Touch Pro2 and the Tilt 2. Other messaging phones like Pantech Reveal, Verizon Razzle and Nokia Twist are also new rivals in the bunch.

Teens and college students are probably thrilled with the arrival of these new devices as they tend to text more than other age groups. Nevertheless, recent research by ergonomists reveals that heavy texting may put the younger generation at risk. It is suggested that since texting requires our body to be positioned in a specific way – stationary shoulders and back with rapidly moving fingers – the more we text, the much more pain we will have in our necks and shoulders.

Even though this is a preliminary research, heavy texters may want to take note and consider using more voice calls instead. After all, that is why cell phones were made in the first place!

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