Using Kik. (Photo: Hashgram)

The inevitable tween regime has further secured its reign with the news that more and more messages are being sent via chat apps, eclipsing SMS for the first time. According to important new research, more than 19 billion texts are sent every day on apps such as iMessage, WhatsApp and others, compared to 17.6 billion SMS messages.

The stats are likely giving telco companies a reason to quiver. Informa estimates that the companies make $120 billion yearly from texting, but the rapidly growing sector apps could endanger that figure. By the end of 2013, the number of messages sent on the “over the top” programs are estimated to double to 40 million. Meanwhile, SMS messages are only expected to rise two billion during the same period.

Of course, the major reason people are beginning to prefer apps like MessageMe is because they're entirely free, with no cost to download or send messages. On average, users send 33 messages per day on the apps, compared to just five SMS messages.

Ted Livingston, the chief executive of tween-favorite Kik, told Financial Times that he is already starting shiva for texting plans:

“I think killing text messaging is going to be inevitable as people switch to [mobile] data plans...If I can get something that is just as good for free, rather than paying for it, I’ll probably take it for free.”

Let’s see how true that holds when his investors start whispering about monetization.

thepublicqueue.com

Ever feel like your hundredth text of the day may have been just a little too calculated? You may be suffering from a severe case of shallowness, according to a new study by the University of Winnipeg, which found that people who send more than a hundred texts a day are more concerned with their image and what others think of them.

The study, performed on 2,300 first-year psychology students who completed an online survey, also discovered that 30 percent of survey-takers texted over 200 times a day and that 12 percent texted over 300 times a day.

University researchers were inspired to initiate the study after reading about Nicholas Carr's "shallowing hypothesis" from his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.

According to Carr's hypothesis, texting and using Twitter for extreme lengths of time can change your thought process, making you more superficial because they encourage rapid and relatively shallow thinking. The results seem to confirm this, according to lead researcher and psychology professor Paul Trapnell.

"The values and traits most closely associated with texting frequency are surprisingly consistent with Carr's conjecture that new information and social media technologies may be displacing and discouraging reflective thought," Trapnell said in a news release, according to CBC News.

Now just make sure to text and Tweet these results as soon as your done reading this. You wouldn't want to start thinking with emotions, would you?

(Photo: Mike Luckovich/Frugal Cafe)

Do you enjoy rolling the window down while driving to catch the breeze in your hair? Hooking your iPhone up to the car stereo so you can enjoy the complex musical stylings of 2 Chainz? What about prioritizing sending a text message over other people's safety?

If so, you're in luck: the "designated texter" campaign, launched in Florida, could help you send your undoubtedly very important text and not accidentally kill anybody in a car accident. It's a win/win!

The Orlando Sentinel reports that the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority has launched an initiative that aims to keep kids from texting while driving. But instead of training them to take a break from their phones for seriously 10 minutes that's how far away the mall is c'mon, or just flat out banning texting while driving altogether, the authority has announced the "designated texter" campaign, which encourages the person in the passenger's seat to field and respond to any texts that flash on the driver's screen.

Of course, if you don't want your passenger seeing all your sexts, this is not the campaign for you.

Florida is one of only a few states that still hasn't banned texting while driving, so the Expressway Authority is hoping this move could begin to instigate change at a state-wide level. Let's just hope this doesn't turn into another Florida Man situation.

(Screencap: Zoobe Cam)

Feel like your voice messages are lacking a certain je ne sais quois? Is your sultry baritone no longer enough to convince a potential partner to take you on a date? Lucky for you, Zoobe Cam, an app that lets you record voice messages and then stage animated characters to perform them, has released a new version that lets sexy animated ladies convey your messages for you, no sexting required!

Eve is Zoobe Cam's newest character; you can dress her up in "playful Bavarian style" or even in a holiday-friendly sexy Santa outfit. Though "if you like to enchant your recipients you should go for her sexy witch outfit." Users can change Eve's outfits, hair color and backgrounds to suit the content of their messages. So next time your boyfriend asks you to sext him a pic, screw Snapchat: just let Eve act "lascivious" for you.

According to a Zoobe Cam press release:

Eve is able to express her feelings in several ways depending on the message’s content. This can be her most beautiful smile, an apologetically lowering of her gaze or a lasciviously lolling on the screen. The user alone decides which emotional state fits best to his message.

Before you cry sexism, fear not: an "Adam" character is in the works so dudes have someone to identity with. We can only hope Adam's outfit also involves ledershosen.

Fearless digital turks

The New York Times dove into the hyper connected world of 20 something with smartphones this weekend, returning with some shocking revelations about the behavior of this new cyber culture. A few findings:

People are always texting one another on their phones, even when they are out to dinner.

Checking in to venues. Passive aggressively emailing friends who are checking in when you are stuck at work.

To maintain an information edge, the digital youth keeps a device handy at all times. Spencer Lazar, founder of Spontaneously, sleeps with his smartphone, iPad and laptop in the bed.

They are helpless without their phones. When their batteries die, they are transported back to "1983".

The story harps on the ways in which people can be so connected to the world at large, but out of touch with the dinner companions right across the table. The piece is attuned to FOMO, the fear of missing out. But it meets its match in Hyperpublic's Jordan Cooper.

Seated next to Ms. Evans, Jordan Cooper, 29, kept one eye on his cellphone but did not answer any of the incoming text messages, e-mail messages or phone calls. Mr. Cooper, who is starting a data-collection and search site called Hyperpublic, said he did not feel FOMO, in part because he did not feel left out of an event just because he was not there physically.

“I don’t think of what’s here and what’s not here as separate,” he said. “Like I’ll be out with my mom and if I look at my phone, she says I’m being anti-social. I say, ‘I’m being social, just not social with you.’ ”

The story quickly moves on, clearly unnerved by Mr. Cooper and his unapologetic embrace of a world in which you can be present in more than one place at once.

Rabbi's coming, got to call you back

The kids these days!

More than half the teens interviewed for a hand-wringing piece in The New York Jewish Week admitted to breaking the holy sabbath's ban on using electricity in order to send text messages.

"It’s a literally hot-button issue," says the report. The kids are calling it keeping, “half Shabbos,” for those who observe all the Shabbat regulations except for texting.

It's tearing the community apart. "On the first night of Rosh Hashanah I was walking home after dinner at friends," wrote a young orthodox Jew. "Passing through a neighborhood park, I passed a group of clearly frum kids – boys and girls – whose faces were illuminated by the lights from their cell-phones, iPhones etc as they texted away.”

Rabbi have tried to step in, but the kids are just addicted. “When we did take away a phone,”  said Rabbi Perton. “The amount of pain the student was in was literally unbearable. The parents would beg and scream because they were getting it at home from their kid and just wanted to end their own misery."