"It’s a shift that appears to be coming at the expense of the last big thing. Images sent between cellphones are on the rise as text messages continue to fall, according to CTIA, the trade association for the wireless industry. An industry report released this year said 2.19 trillion text messages were sent and received in 2012, about 5 percent less than a year earlier. In comparison, MMS, or multimedia messages that include photos and videos, grew by 41 percent to 74.5 billion in 2012."
From this excerpt, and the article in its entirety, you can gather that the author is using these facts in order to try to prove that text-based information is losing its importance because multimedia messages are increasing and the old-fashioned text message numbers are decreasing. While I do whole-heartedly believe that textual information and communication is declining, I disagree with the numerical data they have chosen to support this claim. The reason for this is because there is a lot of information they are leaving out. Although the plain old text message numbers are decreasing, they leave out the fact that many social media outlets include text-messaging applications. Facebook has Facebook Chat, Twitter has Direct Messaging, SnapChat has a one-on-one chat messenger, and these are just the social media outlets that I am familiar with that all offer textual communication.
In addition to this, the article does not indicate whether it is including an "iMessage" as a "text message." iMessage is the chat feature for Apple users to message other Apple users. This can be done on a Mac Computer, iPad, iPhone, and even iPod touch. While you can send pictures, videos, and audio messages via iMessage, you may also send plain text. This raises another question to the excerpt that I included above. Do they include iMessage data in the statistics that they have cited? According to an article from AppleInsider written about a study done by the NPD Group, which is the Global Market Research and Business Solutions, in the fourth quarter of 2013, the iPhone represented 42% of the smartphones owned in the U.S. Although this study does not represent world wide numbers, this is an example of the chunk of data that is being left out of the article if they are dismissing iMessage as a text message.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that I agree with the article as a whole. I would be interested to see the extension of the article from the standpoint of textual communication via multimedia applications and iMessages, including those sent from MacBooks, Mac Desktops, iPads, iPods, and more.
Picturing Something New
Resources
Bilton, N. (2013, June 30). Disruptions: Social Media Images Form a New Language Online. Retrieved May 29, 2015, from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/disruptions-social-media-images-form-a-new-language-online/?_r=1
Hughes, Neil. "Apple's IPhone Now Represents 42% of Smartphones Owned in the US - NPD." Apple's IPhone Now Represents 42% of Smartphones Owned in the US - NPD. 16 Jan. 2014. Web. 31 May 2015.
