The first text message was sent twenty years ago on 3 December 1992 by a 22-year-old British phone engineer. It read 'Merry Christmas'.
Dr Caroline Tagg spoke to Phil Gayle on Radio Oxford this morning to talk about how text messaging has changed the way we communicate over the last two decades, and whether the texting styles of men and women, young and old, have developed differently. Caroline's PhD was in text messaging (http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/253/1/Tagg09PhD.pdf), and she is author of The Discourse of Text Messaging (Continuum, 2012).
Phil Gayle on Radio Oxford: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p008gjhj/broadcasts/2012/12