123 Hidden Sender v2.41 serial key or number

A text message using SMS - the 160 character limit of SMS led to the wide use of shortened jargons, "SMS language"

Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or other type of compatible computer. Text messages may be sent over a cellular network, or may also be sent via an Internet connection.

The term originally referred to messages sent using the Short Message Service (SMS). It has grown beyond alphanumeric text to include multimedia messages using the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) containing digital images, videos, and sound content, as well as ideograms known as emoji (happy faces, sad faces, and other icons), and instant messenger applications (usually the term is used when on mobile devices).

Text messages are used for personal, family, business and social purposes. Governmental and non-governmental organizations use text messaging for communication between colleagues. In the 2010s, the sending of short informal messages has become an accepted part of many cultures, as happened earlier with emailing.^[1] This makes texting a quick and easy way to communicate with friends, family and colleagues, including in contexts where a call would be impolite or inappropriate (e.g., calling very late at night or when one knows the other person is busy with family or work activities). Like e-mail and voicemail and unlike calls (in which the caller hopes to speak directly with the recipient), texting does not require the caller and recipient to both be free at the same moment; this permits communication even between busy individuals. Text messages can also be used to interact with automated systems, for example, to order products or services from e-commerce websites, or to participate in online contests. Advertisers and service providers use direct text marketing to send messages to mobile users about promotions, payment due dates, and other notifications instead of using postal mail, email, or voicemail.

Terminology[edit]

The service is referred to by different colloquialisms depending on the region. It may simply be referred to as a "text" in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, an "SMS" in most of mainland Europe, or an "MMS" or "SMS" in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The sender of a text message is commonly referred to as a "texter".

History[edit]

The electrical telegraph systems, developed in the early 19th century, used simple electrical signals to send text messages. In the late 19th century, the wireless telegraphy was developed using radio waves.

In 1933, the German Reichspost (Reich postal service) introduced the first "telex" service.^[2][3]

The University of Hawaii began using radio to send digital information as early as 1971, using ALOHAnet.^{[citation needed]}Friedhelm Hillebrand conceptualised SMS in 1984 while working for Deutsche Telekom. Sitting at a typewriter at home, Hillebrand typed out random sentences and counted every letter, number, punctuation, and space. Almost every time, the messages contained fewer than 160 characters, thus giving the basis for the limit one could type via text messaging.^[4] With Bernard Ghillebaert of France Télécom, he developed a proposal for the GSM (Groupe Spécial Mobile) meeting in February 1985 in Oslo.^[5] The first technical solution evolved in a GSM subgroup under the leadership of Finn Trosby. It was further developed under the leadership of Kevin Holley and Ian Harris (see Short Message Service).^[6] SMS forms an integral part of SS7 (Signalling System No. 7).^[7] Under SS7, it is a "state" with a 160 character data, coded in the ITU-T "T.56" text format, that has a "sequence lead in" to determine different language codes, and may have special character codes that permit, for example, sending simple graphs as text. This was part of ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) and since GSM is based on this, it made its way to the mobile phone. Messages could be sent and received on ISDN phones, and these can send SMS to any GSM phone. The possibility of doing something is one thing, implementing it another, but systems existed from 1988 that sent SMS messages to mobile phones^{[citation needed]} (compare ND-NOTIS).

SMS messaging was used for the first time on 3 December 1992,^[8] when Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old test engineer for Sema Group in the UK^[9] (now Airwide Solutions),^[10] used a personal computer to send the text message "Merry Christmas" via the Vodafone network to the phone of Richard Jarvis,^[11][12] who was at a party in Newbury, Berkshire, which had been organized to celebrate the event. Modern SMS text messaging is^{[by whom?]} usually messaging from one mobile phone to another. Finnish Radiolinja became the first network to offer a commercial person-to-person SMS text messaging service in 1994. When Radiolinja's domestic competitor, Telecom Finland (now part of TeliaSonera) also launched SMS text messaging in 1995 and the two networks offered cross-network SMS functionality, Finland became the first nation where SMS text messaging was offered on a competitive as well as on a commercial basis. GSM was allowed^{[by whom?]} in the United States and the radio frequencies were blocked and awarded to US "Carriers" to use US technology. Hence there is no "development" in the US in mobile messaging service. The GSM in the US had to use a frequency allocated for private communication services (PCS) – what the ITU frequency régime had blocked for DECT – Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications – 1000-feet range picocell, but survived. American Personal Communications (APC), the first GSM carrier in America, provided the first text-messaging service in the United States. Sprint Telecommunications Venture, a partnership of Sprint Corp. and three large cable-TV companies, owned 49 percent of APC. The Sprint venture was the largest single buyer at a government-run spectrum auction that raised $7.7 billion in 2005 for PCS licenses. APC operated under the brand name of Sprint Spectrum and launched its service on 15 November 1995, in Washington, D.C. and in Baltimore, Maryland. Vice President Al Gore in Washington, D.C. made the initial phone-call to launch the network, calling Mayor Kurt Schmoke in Baltimore.^[13]

Initial growth of text messaging^[where?] was slow, with customers in 1995 sending on average only 0.4 messages per GSM customer per month.^[14] One factor in the slow take-up of SMS was that operators were slow to set up charging systems, especially for prepaid subscribers, and to eliminate billing fraud, which was possible by changing SMSC settings on individual handsets to use the SMSCs of other operators.^{[citation needed]} Over time, this issue was eliminated by switch billing instead of billing at the SMSC and by new features within SMSCs to allow blocking of foreign mobile users sending messages through it.^{[citation needed]} SMS is available on a wide range of networks, including 3G networks. However, not all text-messaging systems use SMS; some notable alternate implementations of the concept include J-Phone's SkyMail and NTT Docomo's Short Mail, both in Japan. E-mail messaging from phones, as popularized by NTT Docomo's i-mode and the RIM BlackBerry, also typically use standard mail protocols such as SMTP over TCP/IP.^[15] As of 2007^[update] text messaging was the most widely used mobile data service, with 74% of all mobile phone users worldwide, or 2.4 billion out of 3.3 billion phone subscribers, at the end of 2007 being active users of the Short Message Service. In countries such as Finland, Sweden, and Norway, over 85% of the population use SMS. The European average is about 80%, and North America is rapidly catching up with over 60% active users of SMS by end of 2008^[update].^{[citation needed]} The largest average usage of the service by mobile phone subscribers occurs in the Philippines, with an average of 27 texts sent per day per subscriber.^{[citation needed]}

Uses[edit]

Text messaging is most often used between private mobile phone users, as a substitute for voice calls in situations where voice communication is impossible or undesirable (e.g., during a school class or a work meeting). Texting is also used to communicate very brief messages, such as informing someone that you will be late or reminding a friend or colleague about a meeting. As with e-mail, informality and brevity have become an accepted part of text messaging. Some text messages such as SMS can also be used for the remote controlling of home appliances. It is widely used in domotics systems. Some amateurs have also built own systems to control (some of) their appliances via SMS.^[16][17] Other methods such as group messaging, which was patented in 2012 by the GM of Andrew Ferry, Devin Peterson, Justin Cowart, Ian Ainsworth, Patrick Messinger, Jacob Delk, Jack Grande, Austin Hughes, Brendan Blake, and Brooks Brasher are used to involve more than two people into a text messaging conversation^{[citation needed]}. A Flash SMS is a type^[18] of text message that appears directly on the main screen without user interaction and is not automatically stored in the inbox. It can be useful in cases such as an emergency (e.g., fire alarm) or confidentiality (e.g., one-time password).^[19]

Short message services are developing very rapidly throughout the world. SMS is particularly popular in Europe, Asia (excluding Japan; see below), United States, Australia, and New Zealand and is also gaining influence in Africa. Popularity has grown to a sufficient extent that the term texting (used as a verb meaning the act of mobile phone users sending short messages back and forth) has entered the common lexicon. Young Asians consider SMS as the most popular mobile phone application.^[20] Fifty percent of American teens send fifty text messages or more per day, making it their most frequent form of communication.^[21] In China, SMS is very popular and has brought service providers significant profit (18 billion short messages were sent in 2001).^[22]

It is a very influential and powerful tool in the Philippines, where the average user sends 10–12 text messages a day. The Philippines alone sends on average over 1 billion text messages a day,^[23] more than the annual average SMS volume of the countries in Europe, and even China and India. SMS is hugely popular in India, where youngsters often exchange lots of text messages, and companies provide alerts, infotainment, news, cricket scores updates, railway/airline booking, mobile billing, and banking services on SMS.

Similarly, in 2008, text messaging played a primary role in the implication of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in an SMS sex scandal.^[24] Short messages are particularly popular among young urbanites. In many markets, the service is comparatively cheap. For example, in Australia, a message typically costs between A$0.20 and $0.25 to send (some prepaid services charge $0.01 between their own phones), compared with a voice call, which costs somewhere between $0.40 and $2.00 per minute (commonly charged in half-minute blocks). The service is enormously profitable to the service providers. At a typical length of only 190 bytes (including protocol overhead), more than 350 of these messages per minute can be transmitted at the same data rate as a usual voice call (9 kbit/s). There are also free SMS services available, which are often sponsored, that allow sending^[25] and receiving^[26] SMS from a PC connected to the internet. Mobile service providers in New Zealand, such as Vodafone and Telecom NZ, provide up to 2000 SMS messages for NZ$10 per month. Users on these plans send on average 1500 SMS messages every month. Text messaging has become so popular that advertising agencies and advertisers are now jumping into the text messaging business. Services that provide bulk text message sending are also becoming a popular way for clubs, associations, and advertisers to reach a group of opt-in subscribers quickly.

Research suggests that Internet-based mobile messaging will have grown to equal the popularity of SMS in 2013, with nearly 10 trillion messages being sent through each technology.^[27][28] Services such as Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp and Viber have led to a decline in the use of SMS in parts of the world.

Research has shown that women are more likely than men to use emoticons in text messages.^[29]

Applications[edit]

Microblogging[edit]

Of many texting trends, a system known as microblogging has surfaced, which consists of a miniaturized blog, inspired mainly by people's tendency to jot down informal thoughts and post them online. They consist of websites like Twitter and its Chinese equivalent Weibo (微博). As of 2016, both of these websites were popular.

Emergency services[edit]

In some countries, text messages can be used to contact emergency services. In the UK, text messages can be used to call emergency services only after registering with the emergency SMS service. This service is primarily aimed at people who, because of disability, are unable to make a voice call. It has recently been promoted as a means for walkers and climbers to call^[30][31] emergency services from areas where a voice call is not possible due to low signal strength. In the US, there is a move to require both traditional operators and Over-the-top messaging providers to support texting to 911.^[32] In Asia, SMS is used for tsunami warnings and in Europe, SMS is used to inform individuals of imminent disaster. Since the location of a handset is known, systems can alert everyone in an area that the events have made impossible to pass through e.g. an avalanche. A similar system, known as Emergency Alert, is used in Australia to notify the public of impending disasters through both SMS and landline phone calls. These messages can be sent based on either the location of the phone or the address to which the handset is registered.

Reminders of hospital appointments[edit]

SMS messages are used in some countries as reminders of hospital appointments. Missed outpatient clinic appointments cost the National Health Service (England) more than £600 million ($980 million) a year.^[33] SMS messages are thought to be more cost-effective, swifter to deliver, and more likely to receive a faster response than letters. A recent study by Sims and colleagues (2012) examined the outcomes of 24,709 outpatient appointments scheduled in mental health services in South-East London. The study found that SMS message reminders could reduce the number of missed psychiatric appointments by 25–28%, representing a potential national yearly saving of over £150 million.^[34]

Commercial uses[edit]

A multimedia message displayed on a mobile phone

Short codes[edit]

Short codes are special telephone numbers, shorter than full telephone numbers, that can be used to address SMS and MMS messages from mobile phones or fixed phones. There are two types of short codes: dialing and messaging.

Text messaging gateway providers[edit]

SMS gateway providers facilitate the SMS traffic between businesses and mobile subscribers, being mainly responsible for carrying mission-critical messages, SMS for enterprises, content delivery and entertainment services involving SMS, e.g., TV voting. Considering SMS messaging performance and cost, as well as the level of text messaging services, SMS gateway providers can be classified as resellers of the text messaging capability of another provider's SMSC or offering the text messaging capability as an operator of their own SMSC with SS7.^[35][36] SMS messaging gateway providers can provide gateway-to-mobile (Mobile Terminated–MT) services. Some suppliers can also supply mobile-to-gateway (text-in or Mobile Originated/MO services). Many operate text-in services on short codes or mobile number ranges, whereas others use lower-cost geographic text-in numbers.^[37]

Premium content[edit]

SMS is widely used for delivering digital content, such as news alerts, financial information, pictures, GIFs, logos and ringtones. Such messages are also known as premium-rated short messages (PSMS).^[38] The subscribers are charged extra for receiving this premium content, and the amount is typically divided between the mobile network operator and the value added service provider (VASP), either through revenue share or a fixed transport fee. Services like 82ASK and Any Question Answered have used the PSMS model to enable rapid response to mobile consumers' questions, using on-call teams of experts and researchers. In November 2013, amidst complaints about unsolicited charges on bills, major mobile carriers in the US agreed to stop billing for PSMS in 45 states, effectively ending its use in the United States.^[39]

Outside the United States, premium short messages are increasingly being used for "real-world" services. For example, some vending machines now allow payment by sending a premium-rated short message, so that the cost of the item bought is added to the user's phone bill or subtracted from the user's prepaid credits. Recently, premium messaging companies have come under fire from consumer groups due to a large number of consumers racking up huge phone bills. A new type of free-premium or hybrid-premium content has emerged with the launch of text-service websites. These sites allow registered users to receive free text messages when items they are interested in go on sale, or when new items are introduced. An alternative to inbound SMS is based on long numbers (international mobile number format, e.g., +44 7624 805000, or geographic numbers that can handle voice and SMS, e.g., 01133203040^[37]), which can be used in place of short codes or premium-rated short messages for SMS reception in several applications, such as TV voting,^[40] product promotions and campaigns.^[41] Long numbers are internationally available, as well as enabling businesses to have their own number, rather than short codes, which are usually shared across a lot of brands. Additionally, long numbers are non-premium inbound numbers.

In workplaces[edit]

The use of text messaging for workplace purposes has grown significantly during the mid-2000s (decade). As companies seek competitive advantages, many employees are using new technology, collaborative applications, and real-time messaging such as SMS, instant messaging, and mobile communications to connect with teammates and customers. Some practical uses of text messaging include the use of SMS for confirming delivery or other tasks, for instant communication between a service provider and a client (e.g., a stockbroker and an investor), and for sending alerts. Several universities have implemented a system of texting students and faculties campus alerts. One such example is Penn State.^[42] As text messaging has proliferated in business, so too have regulations governing its use. One regulation specifically governing the use of text messaging in financial-services firms engaged in stocks, equities, and securities trading is Regulatory Notice 07-59, Supervision of Electronic Communications, December 2007, issued to member firms by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. In 07-59, FINRA noted that "electronic communications", "e-mail", and "electronic correspondence" may be used interchangeably and can include such forms of electronic messaging as instant messaging and text messaging.^[43] Industry has had to develop new technology to allow companies to archive their employees' text messages.

Security, confidentiality, reliability, and speed of SMS are among the most important guarantees industries such as financial services, energy and commodities trading, health care and enterprises demand in their mission-critical procedures. One way to guarantee such a quality of text messaging lies in introducing SLAs (Service Level Agreement), which are common in IT contracts. By providing measurable SLAs, corporations can define reliability parameters and set up a high quality of their services.^[44] Just one of many SMS applications that have proven highly popular and successful in the financial services industry is mobile receipts. In January 2009, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) published the Mobile Banking Overview for financial institutions in which it discussed the advantages and disadvantages of mobile channel platforms such as Short Message Services (SMS), Mobile Web, Mobile Client Applications, SMS with Mobile Web and Secure SMS.^[45]

Mobile interaction services are an alternative way of using SMS in business communications with greater certainty. Typical business-to-business applications are telematics and Machine-to-Machine, in which two applications automatically communicate with each other. Incident alerts are also common, and staff communications are also another use for B2B scenarios. Businesses can use SMS for time-critical alerts, updates, and reminders, mobile campaigns, content and entertainment applications. Mobile interaction can also be used for consumer-to-business interactions, such as media voting and competitions, and consumer-to-consumer interaction, for example, with mobile social networking, chatting and dating.

Text messaging is widely used in business settings; as well, it is used in many civil service and non-governmental organization workplaces. The U.S. And Canadian civil service both adopted Blackberry smartphones in the 2000s.

Group texts[edit]

Group texts involve more than two users. In some cases, when one or more people on the group text are offline, in airplane mode, or has their device shut down, a text being sent to the group may reveal an error message that the text did not go through. Users should rest assured, that all online or available users on the group received the message and that re-sending the message will only result in some participants receiving the message multiple times.

Online SMS services[edit]

There are a growing number of websites that allow users to send free SMS messages online. Some websites provide free SMS for promoting premium business packages.^{[citation needed]}

Worldwide use[edit]

Europe[edit]

SMS is used to send "welcome" messages to mobile phones roaming between countries. Here, T-Mobile welcomes a Proximus subscriber to the UK, and Base welcomes an Orange UK customer to Belgium.

Europe follows next behind Asia in terms of the popularity of the use of SMS. In 2003, an average of 16 billion messages were sent each month. Users in Spain sent a little more than fifty messages per month on average in 2003. In Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom, the figure was around 35–40 SMS messages per month. In each of these countries, the cost of sending an SMS message varies from €0.04–0.23, depending on the payment plan (with many contractual plans including all or several texts for free). In the United Kingdom, text messages are charged between £0.05–0.12. Curiously, France has not taken to SMS in the same way, sending just under 20 messages on average per user per month. France has the same GSM technology as other European countries, so the uptake is not hampered by technical restrictions.

In the Republic of Ireland, 1.5 billion messages are sent every quarter, on average 114 messages per person per month.^[46] In the United Kingdom, as of March 2012,^[update] over 1 billion text messages were sent every week.^[47] The Eurovision Song Contest organized the first pan-European SMS voting in 2002, as a part of the voting system (there was also a voting over traditional landline phone lines). In 2005, the Eurovision Song Contest organized the biggest televoting ever (with SMS and phone voting). During roaming, that is, when a user connects to another network in different country from his own, the prices may be higher, but in July 2009, EU legislation went into effect limiting this price to €0.11.^[48]

Mobile-service providers in Finland offer contracts in which users can send 1000 text messages a month for €10. In Finland, which has very high mobile phone ownership rates, some TV channels began "SMS chat", which involved sending short messages to a phone number, and the messages would be shown on TV. Chats are always moderated, which prevents users from sending offensive material to the channel. The craze evolved into quizzes and strategy games and then faster-paced games designed for television and SMS control. Games require users to register their nickname and send short messages to control a character onscreen. Messages usually cost 0.05 to 0.86 Euro apiece, and games can require the player to send dozens of messages. In December 2003, a Finnish TV channel, MTV3, put a Santa Claus character on-air reading aloud text messages sent in by viewers. On 12 March 2004, the first entirely "interactive" TV channel, VIISI, began operation in Finland. However, SBS Finland Oy took over the channel and turned it into a music channel named The Voice in November 2004. In 2006, the Prime Minister of Finland, Matti Vanhanen, made the news when he allegedly broke up with his girlfriend with a text message.^{[citation needed]} In 2007, the first book written solely in text messages, Viimeiset viestit (Last Messages), was released by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. It is about an executive who travels through Europe and India.

United States[edit]

In the United States, text messaging is very popular; as reported by CTIA in December 2009, the 286 million US subscribers sent 152.7 billion text messages per month, for an average of 534 messages per subscriber per month.^[49] The Pew Research Center found in May 2010 that 72% of U.S. adult cellphone users send and receive text messages.^[50] In the U.S., SMS is often charged both at the sender and at the destination, but, unlike phone calls, it cannot be rejected or dismissed. The reasons for lower uptake than other countries are varied. Many users have unlimited "mobile-to-mobile" minutes, high monthly minute allotments, or unlimited service. Moreover, "push to talk" services offer the instant connectivity of SMS and are typically unlimited. The integration between competing providers and technologies necessary for cross-network text messaging was not initially available. Some providers originally charged extra for texting, reducing its appeal. In the third quarter of 2006, at least 12 billion text messages were sent on AT&T's network, up almost 15% from the preceding quarter. In the U.S., while texting is mainly popular among people from 13–22 years old, it is also increasing among adults and business users. The age that a child receives his/her first cell phone has also decreased, making text messaging a popular way of communicating. The number of texts sent in the US has gone up over the years as the price has gone down to an average of $0.10 per text sent and received. To convince more customers to buy unlimited text messaging plans, some major cellphone providers have increased the price to send and receive text messages from $.15 to $.20 per message.^[51][52] This is over $1,300 per megabyte.^[53] Many providers offer unlimited plans, which can result in a lower rate per text, given sufficient volume.

Japan[edit]

Japan was among the first countries to adopt short messages widely, with pioneering non-GSM services including J-Phone's SkyMail and NTT Docomo's Short Mail. Japanese adolescents first began text messaging, because it was a cheaper form of communication than the other available forms. Thus, Japanese theorists created the selective interpersonal relationship theory, claiming that mobile phones can change social networks among young people (classified as 13- to 30-year-olds). They theorized this age group had extensive but low-quality relationships with friends, and mobile-phone usage may facilitate improvement in the quality of their relationships. They concluded this age group prefers "selective interpersonal relationships in which they maintain particular, partial, but rich relations, depending on the situation."^[54][55] The same studies showed participants rated friendships in which they communicated face-to-face and through text messaging as being more intimate than those in which they communicated solely face-to-face. This indicates participants make new relationships with face-to-face communication at an early stage but use text messaging to increase their contact later on. As the relationships between participants grew more intimate, the frequency of text messaging also increased. However, short messaging has been largely rendered obsolete by the prevalence of mobile Internet e-mail, which can be sent to and received from any e-mail address, mobile or otherwise. That said, while usually presented to the user simply as a uniform "mail" service (and most users are unaware of the distinction), the operators may still internally transmit the content as short messages, especially if the destination is on the same network.

China[edit]

Text messaging is popular and cheap in China. About 700 billion messages were sent in 2007. Text message spam is also a problem in China. In 2007, 353.8 billion spam messages were sent, up 93% from the previous year. It is about 12.44 messages per week per person. It is routine that the People's Republic of China government monitor text messages across the country for illegal content.^[56] Among Chinese migrant workers with little formal education, it is common to refer to SMS manuals when text messaging. These manuals are published as cheap, handy, smaller-than-pocket-size booklets that offer diverse linguistic phrases to utilize as messages.^[57]

Philippines[edit]

SMS was introduced to selected markets in the Philippines in 1995. In 1998, Philippine mobile-service providers launched SMS more widely across the country, with initial television marketing campaigns targeting hearing-impaired users. The service was initially free with subscriptions, but Filipinos quickly exploited the feature to communicate for free instead of using voice calls, which they would be charged for. After telephone companies realized this trend, they began charging for SMS. The rate across networks is 1 peso per SMS (about US$0.023). Even after users were charged for SMS, it remained cheap, about one-tenth of the price of a voice call. This low price led to about five million Filipinos owning a cell phone by 2001.^[58] Because of the highly social nature of Philippine culture and the affordability of SMS compared to voice calls, SMS usage shot up. Filipinos used texting not only for social messages but also for political purposes, as it allowed the Filipinos to express their opinions on current events and political issues.^[59] It became a powerful tool for Filipinos in promoting or denouncing issues and was a key factor during the 2001 EDSA II revolution, which overthrew then-President Joseph Estrada, who was eventually found guilty of corruption. According to 2009 statistics, there are about 72 million mobile-service subscriptions (roughly 80% of the Filipino population), with around 1.39 billion SMS messages being sent daily.^[60][61] Because of the large number of text messages being sent, the Philippines became known as the "text capital of the world" during the late 1990s until the early 2000s.^[60][61]

New Zealand[edit]

There are three mobile network companies in New Zealand. Spark NZ (formally Telecom NZ), was the first telecommunication company in New Zealand. In 2011, Spark was broken into two companies, with Chorus Ltd taking the landline infrastructure and Spark NZ providing services including over their mobile network. Vodafone NZ acquired mobile network provider Bellsouth New Zealand in 1998 and has 2.32 million customers as of July 2013.^[62][63] Vodafone launched the first Text messaging service in 1999^[64] and has introduced innovative TXT services like Safe TXT and CallMe^[65]2degrees Mobile Ltd launched in August 2009. In 2005, around 85% of the adult population had a mobile phone.^[66] In general, texting is more popular than making phone calls, as it is viewed as less intrusive and therefore more polite.

Africa[edit]

Text messaging will become a key revenue driver for mobile network operators in Africa over the next couple of years.^[67] Today, text messaging is already slowly gaining influence in the African market. One such person used text messaging to spread the word about HIV and AIDS.^[68] Also, in September 2009, a multi-country campaign in Africa used text messaging to expose stock-outs of essential medicines at public health facilities and put pressure on governments to address the issue.^[69]

Social effects[edit]

The advent of text messaging made possible new forms of interaction that were not possible before. A person may now carry out a conversation with another user without the constraint of being expected to reply within a short amount of time and without needing to set time aside to engage in conversation. With voice calling, both participants need to be free at the same time. Mobile phone users can maintain communication during situations in which a voice call is impractical, impossible, or unacceptable, such as during a school class or work meeting. Texting has provided a venue for participatory culture, allowing viewers to vote in online and TV polls, as well as receive information while they are on the move. Texting can also bring people together and create a sense of community through "Smart Mobs" or "Net War", which create "people power".^[58] Research has also proven that text messaging is somehow making the social distances larger and could be ruining verbal communication skills for many people.^[70]

Effect on language[edit]

This sticker seen in Paris satirizes the popularity of communication in SMS shorthand. In French: "Is that you? / It's me! / Do you love me? / Shut up!"

The small phone keypad and the rapidity of typical text message exchanges has caused a number spelling abbreviations: as in the phrase "txt msg", "u" (an abbreviation for "you"), "HMU"("hit me up"; i.e., call me), or use of CamelCase, such as in "ThisIsVeryLame". To avoid the even more limited message lengths allowed when using Cyrillic or Greek letters, speakers of languages written in those alphabets often use the Latin alphabet for their own language. In certain languages utilizing diacritic marks, such as Polish, SMS technology created an entire new variant of written language: characters normally written with diacritic marks (e.g., ą, ę, ś, ż in Polish) are now being written without them (as a, e, s, z) to enable using cell phones without Polish script or to save space in Unicode messages. Historically, this language developed out of shorthand used in bulletin board systems and later in Internet chat rooms, where users would abbreviate some words to allow a response to be typed more quickly, though the amount of time saved was often inconsequential. However, this became much more pronounced in SMS, where mobile phone users either have a numeric keyboard (with older cellphones) or a small QWERTY keyboard (for 2010s-era smartphones), so more effort is required to type each character, and there is sometimes a limit on the number of characters that may be sent. In Mandarin Chinese, numbers that sound similar to words are used in place of those words. For example, the numbers 520 in Chinese (wǔ èr líng) sound like the words for "I love you" (wǒ ài nǐ). The sequence 748 (qī sì bā) sounds like the curse "go to hell" (qù sǐ ba).

Predictive text software, which attempts to guess words (Tegic's T9 as well as iTap) or letters (Eatoni's LetterWise) reduces the labour of time-consuming input. This makes abbreviations not only less necessary, but slower to type than regular words that are in the software's dictionary. However, it makes the messages longer, often requiring the text message to be sent in multiple parts and, therefore, costing more to send. The use of text messaging has changed the way that people talk and write essays, some^[71] believing it to be harmful. Children today are receiving cell phones at an age as young as eight years old; more than 35 percent of children in second and third grade have their own mobile phone. Because of this, the texting language is integrated into the way that students think from an earlier age than ever before.^[72] In November 2006, New Zealand Qualifications Authority approved the move that allowed students of secondary schools to use mobile phone text language in the end-of-the-year-exam papers.^[73] Highly publicized reports, beginning in 2002, of the use of text language in school assignments caused some to become concerned that the quality of written communication is on the decline,^[37] and other reports claim that teachers and professors are beginning to have a hard time controlling the problem.^[37] However, the notion that text language is widespread or harmful is refuted by research from linguistic experts.^[74]

An article in The New Yorker explores how text messaging has anglicized some of the world's languages. The use of diacritic marks is dropped in languages such as French, as well as symbols in Ethiopian languages. In his book, Txtng: the Gr8 Db8 (which translates as "Texting: the Great Debate"), David Crystal states that texters in all eleven languages use "lol" ("laughing out loud"), "u", "brb" ("be right back"), and "gr8" ("great"), all English-based shorthands. The use of pictograms and logograms in texts are present in every language. They shorten words by using symbols to represent the word or symbols whose name sounds like a syllable of the word such as in 2day or b4. This is commonly used in other languages as well. Crystal gives some examples in several languages such as Italian sei, "six", is used for sei, "you are". Example: dv6 = dove sei ("where are you") and French k7 = cassette ("casette"). There is also the use of numeral sequences, substituting for several syllables of a word and creating whole phrases using numerals. For example, in French, a12c4 can be said as à un de ces quatres, "see you around" (literally: "to one of these four [days]"). An example of using symbols in texting and borrowing from English is the use of @. Whenever it is used in texting, its intended use is with the English pronunciation. Crystal gives the example of the Welsh use of @ in @F, pronounced ataf, meaning "to me". In character-based languages such as Chinese and Japanese, numbers are assigned syllables based on the shortened form of the pronunciation of the number, sometimes the English pronunciation of the number. In this way, numbers alone can be used to communicate whole passages, such as in Chinese, "8807701314520" can be literally translated as "Hug hug you, kiss kiss you, whole life, whole life I love you." English influences worldwide texting in variation but still in combination with the individual properties of languages.^[75]

American popular culture is also recognized in shorthand. For example, Homer Simpson translates into: ~(_8^(|).^[76] Crystal also suggests that texting has led to more creativity in the English language, giving people opportunities to create their own slang, emoticons, abbreviations, acronyms, etc. The feeling of individualism and freedom makes texting more popular and a more efficient way to communicate.^[77] Crystal has also been quoted in saying that "In a logical world, text messaging should not have survived." But text messaging didn't just come out of nowhere. It originally began as a messaging system that would send out emergency information. But it gained immediate popularity with the public. What followed is the SMS we see today, which is a very quick and efficient way of sharing information from person to person. Work by Richard Ling has shown that texting has a gendered dimension and it plays into the development of teen identity.^[78] In addition we text to a very small number of other persons. For most people, half of their texts go to 3 – 5 other people.^[79]

Research by Rosen et al. (2009)^[80] found that those young adults who used more language-based textisms (shortcuts such as LOL, 2nite, etc.) in daily writing produced worse formal writing than those young adults who used fewer linguistic textisms in daily writing. However, the exact opposite was true for informal writing. This suggests that perhaps the act of using textisms to shorten communication words leads young adults to produce more informal writing, which may then help them to be better "informal" writers. Due to text messaging, teens are writing more, and some teachers see that this comfort with language can be harnessed to make better writers. This new form of communication may be encouraging students to put their thoughts and feelings into words and this may be able to be used as a bridge, to get them more interested in formal writing.^{[according to whom?]}

Joan H. Lee in her thesis What does txting do 2 language: The influences of exposure to messaging and print media on acceptability constraints (2011)^[81] associates exposure to text messaging with more rigid acceptability constraints. The thesis suggests that more exposure to the colloquial, Generation Text language of text messaging contributes to being less accepting of words. In contrast, Lee found that students with more exposure to traditional print media (such as books and magazines) were more accepting of both real and fictitious words. The thesis, which garnered international media attention, also presents a literature review of academic literature on the effects of text messaging on language. Texting has also been shown to have had no effect or some positive effects on literacy. According to Plester, Wood and Joshi and their research done on the study of 88 British 10–12-year-old children and their knowledge of text messages, "textisms are essentially forms of phonetic abbreviation" that show that "to produce and read such abbreviations arguably requires a level of phonological awareness (and orthographic awareness) in the child concerned."^[82]

Texting while driving[edit]

A driver with attention divided between a mobile phone and the road ahead

Texting while driving leads to increased distraction behind the wheel and can lead to an increased risk of an accident. In 2006, Liberty Mutual Insurance Group conducted a survey with more than 900 teens from over 26 high schools nationwide. The results showed that 87% of students found texting to be "very" or "extremely" distracting.^[83] A study by AAA found that 46% of teens admitted to being distracted behind the wheel due to texting. One example of distraction behind the wheel is the 2008 Chatsworth train collision, which killed 25 passengers. The engineer had sent 45 text messages while operating the train.^{[citation needed]} A 2009 experiment with Car and Driver editor Eddie Alterman (that took place at a deserted air field, for safety reasons) compared texting with drunk driving. The experiment found that texting while driving was more dangerous than being drunk. While being legally drunk added four feet to Alterman's stopping distance while going 70 mph, reading an e-mail on a phone added 36 feet, and sending a text message added 70 feet.^[84] In 2009, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute released the results of an 18-month study that involved placing cameras inside the cabs of more than 100 long-haul trucks, which recorded the drivers over a combined driving distance of three million miles. The study concluded that when the drivers were texting, their risk of crashing was 23 times greater than when not texting.^[85]

Texting while walking[edit]

Due to the proliferation of smart phone applications performed while walking, "texting while walking" or "wexting" is the increasing practice of people being transfixed to their mobile device without looking in any direction but their personal screen while walking. First coined reference in 2015 in New York from Rentrak's chief client officer^[86] when discussing time spent with media and various media usage metrics. Text messaging among pedestrians leads to increased cognitive distraction and reduced situation awareness, and may lead to increases in unsafe behavior leading to injury and death.^[87][88] Recent studies conducted on cell phone use while walking showed that cell phone users recall fewer objects when conversing,^[89] walk slower,^[87][90] have altered gait^[88][91] and are more unsafe when crossing a street.^[89] Additionally, some gait analyses showed that stance phase during overstepping motion, longitudinal and lateral deviation increased during cell phone operation but step length and clearance did not;^[87][91] a different analysis did find increased step clearance and reduced step length.^[88]

It is unclear which processes may be affected by distraction, which types of distraction may affect which cognitive processes, and how individual differences may affect the influence of distraction.^[92] Lamberg and Muratori believe that engaging in a dual-task, such as texting while walking, may interfere with working memory and result in walking errors.^[87] Their study demonstrated that participants engaged in text messaging were unable to maintain walking speed or retain accurate spatial information, suggesting an inability to adequately divide their attention between two tasks. According to them, the addition of texting while walking with vision occluded increases the demands placed on the working memory system resulting in gait disruptions.^[87]

Texting on a phone distracts participants, even when the texting task used is a relatively simple one.^[90] Stavrinos et al. investigated the effect of other cognitive tasks, such as engaging in conversations or cognitive tasks on a phone, and found that participants actually have reduced visual awareness.^[93] This finding was supported by Licence et al., who conducted a similar study.^[88] For example, texting pedestrians may fail to notice unusual events in their environment, such as a unicycling clown.^[94] These findings suggest that tasks that require the allocation of cognitive resources can affect visual attention even when the task itself does not require the participants to avert their eyes from their environment. The act of texting itself seems to impair pedestrians' visual awareness. It appears that the distraction produced by texting is a combination of both a cognitive and visual perceptual distraction.^[90] A study conducted by Licence et al. supported some of these findings, particularly that those who text while walking significantly alter their gait. However, they also found that the gait pattern texters adopted was slower and more "protective", and consequently did not increase obstacle contact or tripping in a typical pedestrian context.^[88]

There have also been technological approaches to increase the safety/awareness of pedestrians that are (inattentionally) blind while using a smart phone, e.g., using a Kinect^[95] or an ultrasound phone cover^[96] as a virtual white cane, or using the built-in camera to algorithmically analyze single,^[97] respectively a stream of pictures^[98] for obstacles, with Wang et al. proposing to use machine learning to specifically detect incoming vehicles.^[99]

Sexting[edit]

Sexting is slang for the act of sending sexually explicit or suggestive content between mobile devices using SMS.^[100] A genre of texting, it contains either text, images, or video that is intended to be sexually arousing. A portmanteau of sex and texting, sexting was reported as early as 2005 in The Sunday Telegraph Magazine,^[101] constituting a trend in the creative use of SMS to excite another with alluring messages throughout the day.^[102]

Although sexting often takes place consensually between two people, it can also occur against the wishes of a person who is the subject of the content.^[100]

All cracks and keygens are made by enthusiasts and professional reverse engineers

IMPORTANT NOTICE: All staff like keygens and crack files are made by IT university students from USA, Russia, North Korea and other countries. All the files were checked by professors and were fully verified for compatibility with Windows OS, MAC OS and *nix systems like Linux and Unix

Fetching...done. Download 123 Hidden Sender v2.41 by CAT crack/keygen with serial number