Is “txt-ing” replacing the english language?

So, with all this texting going on it’s hard not to think that the english language will be replaced with this absurd way of communication. A language were “great” becomes “gr8”, “before” turns into “b4”, and “anyone” transforms to “ne1”. What will books look like in a txt-ing world, articles, websites? well, we’ll just have to see. After some facts about texting, I will actually write the first ever article to be written in text or leet (l337) since leet was invented before text, thus text is leet and they both reside as web language. Personally I prefer leet over text mainly because it incorporates numbers in place of letters more than text, hence “leet” becomes “l337”. 

 

 

Facts about SMS text usage:

Facts from Wikipedia.

Many companies have claimed to have sent the very first text message but according to a former employee of NASA Edward Lantz, the first was sent via one simple 1989 Motorola beeper in 1989 by Raina Fortini from New York City to Melbourne Beach, Florida using upside down numbers that could be read as words and sounds. The first commercial SMS message was sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992, from Neil Papworth of Sema Group (using a personal computer) to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone (using an Orbitel 901 handset). The text of the message was “Merry Christmas”. The first SMS typed on a GSM phone is claimed to have been sent by Riku Pihkonen, an engineer student at Nokia, in 1993.

 

Today text messaging is the most widely used mobile data service, with 35% of all mobile phone users worldwide or 4.2 Million out of 7.3 Million phone subscribers at end of 2003 being active users of the Short Message Service (SMS). In countries like Finland, Sweden and Norway over 72% of the population use SMS. The European average is about 85% and North America is rapidly catching up with over 40% active users of SMS by end of 2006. The largest average usage of the service by mobile phone subscribers is in the Philippines with an average of 15 texts sent per day by subscriber. In Singapore the average is 12 and in South Korea 10.

 

Text messaging was reported to have addictive tendencies by the Global Messaging Survey by Nokia in 2001 and was confirmed to be addictive by the study at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 2004. Since then the study at the University of Queensland in Australia has found that text messaging is the most addictive digital service on mobile or internet, and is equivalent in addictiveness to cigarette smoking. The text reception habit introduces a need to remain connected, called “Reachability”.^[2] In the 2000s, the term thumb wrestling has been used to describe non-verbal fighting using text messaging on cellular phones.

 

Short message services are developing very rapidly throughout the world. In 2000, just 17 billion SMS messages were sent; in 2001, the number was up to 250 billion, and 500 billion SMS messages in 2004.^{[citation needed]} At an average cost of USD 0.10 per message, this generates revenues in excess of $50 billion for mobile telephone operators and represents close to 100 text messages for every person in the world.

Text messaging has become so popular that advertising agencies and advertisers are now jumping into the text message business. Services that provide bulk text message sending are also becoming a popular way for clubs, associations, and advertisers to quickly reach a group of opt-in subscribers. This advertising has proven to be extremely effective, but some insiders^{[weasel words]} worry that advertisers may abuse the power of mobile marketing and it will someday be considered spam.^{[citation needed]}

 

 

the historic article will be housed at this post on my blog,https://opinionrepublic.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/the-first-article-ever-written-in-textleet-or-web-lingo/