Texting Turns 30 Years Old, And It All Started With A Festive Note

Remember life without texting? It’s pretty difficult to think about the time we relied solely on landlines to schedule meetups, during a smartphone-less era when everyone had a little black book of numbers. 

As the festive season approaches, it’s time to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first text, sent on December 3, 1992. 

According to Interesting Engineering, the very first message was sent by British engineer Neil Papworth, who at the time worked for Sema Group Telecom—the firm that created the Short Message Service Center (SMSC) for Vodafone. 

Papworth sent the text, a simple “Merry Christmas,” through a computer to his colleague, Richard Jarvis, who at the time was at a holiday party. 

Before the days of WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, most people with a mobile phone chose to use SMS, a form of text messaging that allows users to send, receive, store, and forward messages from devices through a cellular tower.

Some 30 years later, text messaging is still as popular as ever, if not more so. As per a Pew Research Poll, 97% of Americans own a cell phone, with 85% choosing to use a smartphone, with texting as the most widely used feature. 

The next time you send a cute sticker or meme to the group chat, think about how it’s been 30 years since the first-ever text message, and breathe a sigh of relief that we get to send messages instead of answering phone calls. 

[via Interesting Engineering and NDTV, cover image via Patricia Hofmeester | Dreamstime.com]