Effects of Shortcut Text Messaging

Definition of SMS Text Messaging: What is SMS Messaging, Text Messaging?
From Adam Fendelman, former About.com Guide
Definition: SMS stands for short message service. SMS is also often referred to as texting, sending text messages or text messaging. The service allows for short text messages to be sent from one cell phone to another cell phone or from the Web to another cell phone.

Including spaces, text messages traditionally can’t exceed 160 characters. SMS messages often use T9 predictive technology. T9 makes text messaging faster and more efficient on non-QWERTY cell phones without full keyboards.

MMS, which is often used to send pictures, extends upon SMS and allows for longer content lengths. Some cell phones have full keyboards for faster texting whereas others require numbers to be tapped multiple times to achieve a particular letter.

While the bulk of a cell phone bill typically is its voice minutes or data usage, text messages are either included in the voice plan or are added as an extra cost. SMS messaging is used pervasively around the globe. http://cellphones.about.com/od/phoneglossary/g/smstextmessage.html WHAT IS TEXT MESSAGING?
Text messaging, or texting, is a way to send information to and from cellular and smart phone devices. Texting is a common way that people are using mobile technology in public health. Messages can be sent as text (Short Message Service or SMS), pictures, video, or audio (Multimedia Messaging Service or MMS). A text message can be sent to individual or multiple mobile phones and devices. http://aids.gov/using-new-media/tools/text-messaging/ What is SMS?
By Sam Costello, About.com Guide
Definition:
SMS, or Short Message Service - is the formal name for text messaging. It’s a means of sending short, text-based messages from one phone to another. Though it is most commonly known as text messaging, many cell phone rate plans, including those used for the iPhone, refer to the technology, and the number of messages allowed in a rate plan, as SMS.

The iPhone’s lack of multimedia text messaging – the ability to send photos, videos, and audio – was a controversial feature of the first-generation iPhone. http://ipod.about.com/od/iphonesoftwareterms/g/sms_definition.htm what is text messaging? by Jennifer Hord
SMS, or text messaging, has replaced talking on the phone for a new "thumb generation" of texters.
SMS stands for short message service. Simply put, it is a method of communication that sends text between cell phones, or from a PC or handheld to a cell phone. The "short" part refers to the maximum size of the text messages: 160 characters (letters, numbers or symbols in the Latin alphabet). For other alphabets, such as Chinese, the maximum SMS size is 70 characters. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/e-mail-messaging/sms.htm What is Text Messaging?
Text messaging is a term for short communications made through cell phones. It uses what is called the Short Message Service, and so is often called SMS for short. It is also sometimes referred to as txting, using the shorthand common in such messages as a way of dealing with short character limits and often bulky interfaces.

The origin of text messaging is somewhere back in the late-1980s and early-1990s. The first commercial texting took place in 1991, sent from a computer to a handset. It didn’t catch on for some time after these initial texts, and by the mid-1990s it was scarcely being used throughout Europe. By 2000, the service was being used with some intermittent frequency in Europe and Asia, although it was still rarely used in the United States, and fewer than 20 billion text messages were sent worldwide.

By 2001, text messaging had caught on and began to spread like wildfire, with the number of messages sent up to over 250 billion, a more than ten-fold increase. Young users especially seemed drawn to it as a quick and easy way to stay in constant contact. By 2003, more than half of all cell phone users were thought to be sending texts. It is now the most popular service used with cell phones, and it has become a fixture of modern life. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-text-messaging.htm What is text messaging?
Text messaging is a way to communicate on your mobile phone by sending and receiving plain text messages. Other terms for text messaging include SMS (which stands for Short Message Service), texting, mobile messaging, wireless messaging, and short mail.
http://www.ctia.org/business_resources/short_code/index.cfm/AID/10342