Texting on a mobile phone in the UK is now more become popular than making a voice call according to new research which has been released by the telephone regulator Ofcom
According to Ofcom’s Communications Market Report of 2012 that the use of texting has doubled within a 4 year period. Last year as much as 150 billion texts got sent out, now the average person sends as much as 50 texts a week making it an average of 2,600 texts over a period of a year.
The group leading the way with this trend from making traditional voice calls comes from the younger 16 to 24 age group in the UK. Ofcom found that as much as 96% of 16 to 24 years olds are now using some kind of text based application to communicate, they also found that traditional SMS texting has proven to be more popular than using social networking site applications to communicate, only 73% used a social networking site like Facebook and Twitter to chat compared to 90 % that used SMS. Only 67% of this age group actually made calls on a daily bases making it the least popular to way communicate when using a mobile phone.
James Thickett, Ofcom’s director of research, said: “Our research reveals that in just a few short years, new technology has fundamentally changed the way that we communicate.
“Talking face to face or on the phone are no longer the most common ways for us to interact with each other.
“In their place, new forms of communications are emerging which don’t require us to talk to each other – especially among younger age groups.
“This trend is set to continue as technology advances and we move further into the digital age.” Source Ofcom
Overall the number of mobile and land line voice calls made is on a continual slide year after year. This seems to come down to the rapid growth in popularity over the years of social networking sites and internet enabled devices, such as tablets, smartphone and notebooks in which the average home has now at least 3 devices. In 2011 Ofcom states that the time spent on the phone by UK adults fell by as much as 5%, this is reflected in a 10% fall in the volume of calls made from landlines, and for the first time ever, Ofcom has even seen a fall in the volume of mobile calls (by just over 1%) in 2011.
