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SALT LAKE CITY — Twenty years ago, a single message was sent that would lead to the development of system of communication that, once a slow-moving fad, grew into a language of its own.
The day was Dec. 3, 1992. Neil Papworth, an engineer in the UK, did something that didn't seem like a big deal, at the time: he sat at a computer and sent the words "Merry Christmas" to Richard Jarvis, a director for European cellular carrier Vodafone.
The message was received on Jarvis' Orbatel 901 mobile phone, which was about the size of an office phone. It had to be sent from a computer, though, because no mobile phones had the capability to send a text message at the time.
"Years went on and people were able to start to send text messages. It took quite a few years of it to take off," Papworth told ABC News. "But by the 10th anniversary it was fairly big by then."
The first message between phones had been sent in Finland in Dec. 1993 by Riku Pihkonen of Nokia. People were slow to pick up the service, though, sending only 0.4 messages per customer a month by 1995.
By 2000, users were sending 35 messages per month. By 2006, users were still sending only 65 messages a month — but by 2008, that number had skyrocketed to 357.
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Reports have come out in recent years that suggest text messaging may have reached its peak, as text-message traffic has declined in multiple countries. The U.S. saw its first decline in 2012: cellphone owners who once sent an average of 696 texts a month sent only 678 in the the third quarter of 2012.
The decline was not a large one, but it was a first for the U.S., and could spell trouble for sms as smartphones become more popular, with more than 50 percent of Americans opting for a data plan. And as data prices dip and third-party messaging applications — including Apple's iMessage — become more popular, text messaging may continue to dip.
Despite the decline in text messaging, service carriers do not have much to worry about, as The New York Times notes: Larger carriers are still posting profits as usual, thanks to the jump in data profits.
