23 May

Texting Rules In Canada

Posted in News on 23.05.11 by John Meloche

On Victoria Day long weekend, there’s a lot of things that Canadians just love to do. Heading north to cottage country is certainly one of them. And weather people are choosing to travel or stay home this weekend (we all know how high the price of gas is), barbeques are a common occurrence during “May 2-4”.

May’s long weekend celebrations have long been part of a Canadian past time that citizens across the country look forward to. No doubt, friends across the country have been calling and texting each other all weekend in an effort to make holiday plans. Texting, by the way, is not a past time saved for holidays. Oh no, not for Canadians.

As Michael Oliveira of The Canadian Press reported a couple of weeks ago, texting happens to be one of the most popular activities in all of Canada! What exactly is it about electronic messaging that has captured the hearts of Canadians so much? Oliveira notes that while Canada is the birthplace of the BlackBerry, it’s also the home of the world’s most Facebook-crazed people.

You would think, however, that with the advent of Facebook, along with BBM and all the other ways to communicate using electronic devices, that texting may go the way of the dinosaur. Not so, says Oliveira. Currently, texting – first offered in Canada in 2002 – is bigger than it has ever been.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association reports that a whopping “56.4 billion texts were sent in Canada in 2010, up 60 per cent from the 35.3 billion sent the previous year. That’s an average of 4.7 billion a month, or 154.5 million a day.” This incredible number not only exemplifies the widespread popularity of texting, but highlights just how much our modes of communication have changed.

For example, two friends can now meet up with each other without ever sharing a spoken word. Giving someone a quick call has been replaced by “Where are you?” and “Five minutes away” messages. Consider that entire conversations are often had through text messages these days. There really is no stopping it!

CWTA spokesman, Marc Choma believes that texting has stuck with consumers because of its relative ease. Even though so many social networking media are available, “text messaging has a certain appeal just because it is so instant and so quick and all you have to know is a person’s phone number,” he said.

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