MANY people remember waiting anxiously for the postman on the day their exam results were due. But today's teenagers are just as likely to find out about their future through the beep of a mobile phone.
The Scottish Qualifications Authority is not the only one to choose text messaging as their preferred form of communication. Newspapers, sports clubs and shops are all using the technology to keep people up-to-date.
Teachers are now texting parent
s if their children fail to turn up to school in a bid to beat truancy. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Tayside can now alert the police to emergencies by text. People in other parts of the country are using them to order taxis, or receive warnings about air quality. And holidaymakers are now as likely to send a picture message to friends and relatives as the traditional postcard.
The latest survey by the communications watchdog Ofcom shows that our love affair with the mobile phone shows no signs of waning. In fact, Britons are the most enthusiastic texters in Europe, sending 67 messages a month, more than three times as many as their French and German counterparts.
And, as people's lifestyles get busier, the traditional landline is losing its appeal. One in ten households who have a fixed telephone line say they never use it, while 70 per cent of users also use their mobile at home. A growing proportion of young people are deciding not to have a landline at all.
Rob Bamforth, from IT analysts Quocirca, said the mobile phone had gone from a novelty to an essential in just a few years. He said: "In recent years it's become one of the three most important items people carry, along with keys and a wallet or purse, when heading outside."
The Mobile Data Association found usage has risen rapidly in the last year. Britons are sending 30 per cent more text messages than in 2007, a total of 1.4 billion a week. Picture and video messaging is also 30 per cent higher than a year ago. Mobile internet use has grown by 25 per cent since May 2006, with an average of 4500 new users every day.
Ofcom said the continuing popularity of the text message is down to its ease of use and availability on all handsets and networks. They say other communications technologies struggle to match it for convenience.
Ofcom also found that, despite the credit crunch, people are chatting more, but paying less. People in the UK spent a total of 247 billion minutes on the phone last year, a massive rise from 233 billion the previous year. The main increase was due to mobile phones, which accounted for 99 billion minutes. But the average family's bill for communications fell by 1.6 per cent, contrasting with steep rises in the price of groceries.
Peter Phillips, Ofcom's strategy and market development partner, said canny consumers were taking advantage of special offers and internet and phone packages to keep their bills low.
He said: "We are spending more and more time with our communications devices but spending less on them. Our devotion to staying in touch wherever and whenever we want shows no sign of diminishing and, with healthy competition, overall prices offer increasing value for money."
Alan Bones, head of communications at BT, said it was not only young people who were embracing the new technology.
He said: "People want one thing that does everything. They want it to work like a traditional telephone in the house and a mobile when they are out and about. It's not just younger people who are signing up for this. There's a growing number of people in their 60s and 70s who are using mobile phones and broadband.
"Mobile phones are cheaper to use than ever before and there are lots of packages that give you free calls, text messages and internet access.
"I think there will still be phones around the house for a while yet. But there's no doubt that the traditional landline is in decline."
If the home phone is seen as increasingly old-fashioned, then it might be thought that letter-writing was even more of a dying art.
But a Royal Mail spokeswoman said they still delivered a large volume of personal mail among the eight million items they handle in Scotland each day.
She said: "People still like to send a birthday, Christmas or Valentine's Day cards. We do notice a large rise in letters and parcels at certain times of year.
"I think people still think it's nice to get something personal through the post. A text message or e-mail is never quite the same."
