About 75% of people worldwide send text messages, with more than 8.6 trillion messages sent each year. How often people text can vary widely depending on the country and the usage of mobile phones. The Philippines is often referred to as the texting capital of the world because it had the highest texting rate in 2009 — about 2 billion texts per day. In 2011, the US surpassed the Philippines for texting, with an average of 6 billion per day. People text an average of about 700 times per month in the US, but the numbers can differ by age. For instance, Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 have a much higher average, with about 3,000 texts sent per month.
More about texting:
- The first-ever text message was sent on 3 December 1992. It said, “Merry Christmas.”
- In 2010, the Guinness World Record for fastest text was set by a female in the UK who texted 160 characters in 25.94 seconds.
- People who text while driving are estimated to be distracted from the road for about 4.6 seconds per text.
