On December 3rd 1992, a 22-year-old Canadian test engineer sat down and typed out a very simple message, "Merry Christmas." It flew over the Vodafone network to the phone of one Richard Jarvis, and since then, we just haven't been able to stop texting.


Texting is a major staple of communication now, and by far the main use of a phone for many, but it didn't start out that way. In the very beginning, texts where just a way to send network notifications, namely to let you know you had a voice-mail. In 1993, Nokia became the first company to make GSM handsets capable of person-to-person texting, but it still didn't skyrocket to popularity for several years. By 1995, people were only sending .4 text messages a month on average.

Things couldn't be more wildly different today. In 2010, the world sent over 6.1 trillion messages, or roughly 193,000 per second. And that's just good old-fashioned SMS, not the dozens upon dozens of services it's inspired. So while you're launching your daily flurry of textuals, take a second to consider the fact that your inane contributions are part of an unimaginable avalanche of data. It's txting's bday u guys, LOL.[Wikipedia]


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