The Popularity of Texting

Mobile phones have become one of the most widely used form of communication amongst humans in the last few years, and for good reason. They're fast, convenient and relatively cheap. Texting in particular, has become the preferred way for many people, of contacting someone via a mobile phone. A text is more relaxed than a phone call, or face to face conversation. You can talk at whatever pace you want, be that ten texts a minute or just one text a minute. And also, texting completely gets rid of the dreaded and infamous awkward silence that can often come with conversation, which makes it the go-to way of contacting someone who you're not too close with.

According to a survey conducted by the PewResearch Centre in 2012, texting is hugely popular not only in wealthy countries, but also developing ones. Contrary to what you might expect, it was found that texting is actually most common in countries such as Indonesia, where 96% of cell phone users said they regularly texted, Kenya where 89% said the same, and Lebanon with 87%. In more developed countries, such as the US (67%), and Germany (56%), texting was less popular due to  easy access to an internet connection. The internet allows people to communicate in more ways than regular texting, such as social media, email and most importantly, apps.

Apps such as Viber and WhatsApp have brought a decline in the popularity of traditional SMS texting in developed countries by removing the "relatively cheap" aspect of texting, and replacing it with "COMPLETELY FREE!". In 2014, WhatsApp reported that it usually handles about 30 billion messages everyday, compared to the 20 billion SMS sent everyday. Mobile operators have tried to compete with this new phenomenon by slashing their prices, and introducing deals such as free texts on the weekends or free texts to anyone using the same mobile operator as you. But why would you bother going through the hassle, when you and your friends can just download Viber in a few seconds and never have to worry about paying a dime? And with more and more apps like Snapchat and Facebook Messenger hopping on the free texts bandwagon, and becoming hugely popular every year, it is quite likely that we could see the downfall of traditional SMS texting over the next few decades.  

Sources:
http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/20/global-digital-communication-texting-social-networking-popular-worldwide/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11340321/WhatsApp-overtakes-text-messages.html