The twentieth anniversary of the first ever text message being sent has now passed. It is a mere two decades since UK engineer Neil Papworth sent his ‘Merry Christmas’ message to a colleague.

It is hard to imagine that the telecom companies knew what would follow. Hundreds of Billions of messages later and the Irish are among the most prodigious texters in the world, sending over a billion messages every month in 2012 so far. It is an astonishing statistic that the Irish send an average of at least 142 message per person every month.

So the next time you are on a bus or train and the person next to you is contorting their fingers and thumbs as if their life depends on it or….
…the next time you are at the theatre or cinema only to hear the unmistakable drone of a mobile phone or…
…the next time you read some text speak (lol omg lmho l8r, etc. etc.) and despair then…
…you will know who started it all.

Thanks Neil