Texting Turns 20 but Is It Doomed?

Text messaging has already made history, but also contributed to ruining the way we communicate one with another. However, the involved companies’ worries point to a different direction. The short message service or SMS helped companies make billions, but nowadays it is showing a negative trend. Could the service released in December 1992 have gone past its peak already?

The 20 years of texting may be a time long enough to lead to a downfall. After all, we are talking about the technology and communications world, where an innovation is quickly replaced with a new version of it. The new generation of users is less interested in the SMS and more into free data services like the BlackBerry Messenger or WhatsApp. Many such services are out there, gathering millions of users. Considering the ridiculously small amount of data in a text message, the fees charged for these are too high to still be preferred by users. In fact, any fee would be obsolete, given the newer and better methods of sharing data. Many find the new trend to be a relief, since the language no longer has to be mutilated into short forms as the character constraint is dropped.

Smartphone’s and the connected data services even made it possible to send data when there is no phone signal, a case in which texting would not be possible. Even under these circumstances, mobile operators are not in danger, and they will not give up the SMS for good, in spite of the diminishing usage.