SMS or short messaging service has evolved much from the time that subscription was not automatically included in your mobile phone bill.

 

This would be about the same time that you had to pay extra for Caller Line Identification – unimaginable in this day and age as most of us would consider not answering calls without knowing who the caller is.

 

Some of us are even too young to have known ‘texting’ without the use of T9, and some of us wouldn’t even know what T9 is as it is as standard as the phones that we now use.

 

Gone are the days of clicking the same key multiple times to get the desired letter of the alphabet. Although widely used nowadays, the introduction of this feature surely had some die hard opponents. The transition, perhaps for most, was tiresome and tedious. But catch on it did and it wasn’t long till T9 was available in a variety of languages.

 

Ironically perhaps, that this was the beginning of the end of the good old days where anyone could understand any SMS written. Somehow this journey of evolution took a U-turn of sorts from the focus on efficiently entering legible messages for the benefit of both the sender and the reader, into super-efficient shorthand punches for the exclusive benefit of the sender.

 

Not too much misaligned from the notion of ‘me, my and I’ that seemingly has become the mantra of the younger generation …

 

Today, SMS’s are as much coded language only to be understood by people who are on the exact wavelength. That means you don’t have to worry about your parents reading your messages – at least not if they are over 35.

 

Mix two or more regular languages as often done in Asian countries and you would have an almost unbreakable code. Forget expensive hyper-encryption protocols … just talk as you would normally do. Nobody understands teenagers anyways, right? Taking advantage of that is simply a logical progression of events.

 

This is probably the only area where the ‘born cordless’ generation is the undisputed heavyweight champions, totally outshining the older ‘upgraded from landline’ relics. It really is a battle funded by the losers – how many kids can actually afford a hand phone without financial support from their parents.

 

So, if you are one of those on the losing side, what do you do to bridge this divide?

 

I x knw wht u wud wnt 2do … bt I knw id strt prcticg txting dring lnch!