With the average American sending 2,000 texts every month, texting has become an essential part of our daily lives and one of the quickest ways to communicate around the world.
With 200,000 texts sent every minute, who was the first to start the obsessive texting trend?
In 1992, British engineer Neil Papworth sent the first text message. While working for the European cell service Vodafone, he was only 22 when he revolutionized the world of SMS – short message service.
Since the cellphone’s ability to send texts had not been developed yet, Papworth sent a text message to Richard Jarvis, a Vodafone director, from his computer. Jarvis, on the other hand, could not just keep his phone in his pocket, since his humungous Orbatel 901 cellphone was basically an old, cordless office phone.
While Jarvis attended a Christmas party, he received the first text ever: “Merry Christmas.”
“For me it was just another day’s testing,” Papworth told ABC News. “It didn’t seem to be anything big at the time.”
This was way before the days of TTYL’s and Christmas tree emojis.