The UK love affair with text messaging

A feature article by aregan, Apr 02, 2008         

Although virtually unknown as a form of communication only 15 years ago, text messaging has become an important part of many people’s lives and is regularly used to keep in touch with friends and colleagues around the world. Indeed, people in the United Kingdom send over 100million text messages every day, and on New Year’s Eve alone over 290 million texts were sent.

As a result of our new-found love for text messaging, mobile operators have developed a plethora of text-based services that enable subscribers to keep a close eye on everything from their finances to the latest news and sports scores, as well as with regular updates as events unfold. The list of benefits is endless with new ideas constantly being added and changing the way we receive and digest our information.

A recent study carried out by Sheffield University looked at whether gender was a factor in the type and length of text messages sent. Unsurprisingly, according to the report authors, women spent the most time texting and their messages were longer in length. The research showed that men tended to write short notes to each other and only about one particular issue whereas women were more likely to have several issues on the go at once and messages often had a beginning, middle and end.

Further analysis showed that women to women communication yielded an average 82 words per message and men to men dialogues used only 60 words. Communication varied slightly between the sexes with women to men messaging averaging 80 words, whereas men to women recorded slightly less at only 74.

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