Google me: It's simply an intexication of the young

By JULIE MIDDLETON

We're intexicated with it. The ability to send short messages through a mobile phone has mushroomed into a whole field of actual and potential new applications.

A BBC story says that text messages have superseded phone calls as the most common use for a mobile phone among young people.

Mobile phone text messaging has more than doubled since March 2002, according to the survey. And the younger people are, the more likely they are to text.

More than eight out of 10 people under 25 were more likely to send someone a text message than call.

But at the other end of the scale, just 14 per cent of those aged over 55 said they preferred to text.

The uptake of text messaging by the young means texting has shaped popular culture (though I can never see universities accepting text-style essays).

Lingo2word outlines text abbreviations so you don't make an unhip text faux pas. A3 stands for "anywhere, anytime, any place" and \_/ \_/ is "drinks for two". It even has a text message translator.

Textually.org is "all about texting".

It's also full of news of how texting will be applied in future - for example, East Japan Railway will next year start services where passengers can pay fares by passing their cellphones over electronic readers.

The same sort of thing is planned for concert ticket sales in Canada, where a bar-code-encrypted ticket sent to a cell- phone will then be read by a scanner.

Of course the site also leads to stories about one David Beckham, husband of ex-Spice Girl Victoria. Exhibit A, the alleged saucy exchange between soccer star Beckham and his former personal assistant Rebecca Loos, as repeated by the story at The Age.

Among the (printable) highlights of the text messages is Ms Loos telling the soccer star: "U should see me, naked with only a white cotton g-string," to which Becks apparently responds: "Love the sound of that cotton." Don't intimate exchanges look corny out of context ...

But Beckham isn't the only jock whose thumbs have led him astray. Aussie cricketer Shane Warne was accused last year of bombarding South African woman Helen Cohen Alon with salacious text entreaties.

And yes, it is quite possible to get addicted to texting.

Britain's Priory Hospital in Roehampton treats text addicts as well as those suffering from over-dependence on alcohol and drugs.

Dr Mark Collins says addictions are often about "living in an artificial reality. Texting, for people who have other problems with relationships or whatever, provides a way of having a safe, artificial relationship where you feel in control". Like drinking alcohol, texting in small quantities does not cause problems but "repetitive, compulsive behaviour"can destroy self-esteem and relationships.