Brits will type almost two million words in text messages over their lifetime, a study has concluded.
That is more than twice the complete works of Shakespeare (884,647 words) and almost four times longer than War And Peace (561,093).
NetVoucherCodes.co.uk surveyed 550 people in their 20s to find out the average number of words typed in their last 10 text messages, along with the average number of texts they had sent per day over the last month.
The study found that the typical text consisted of 19.7 words, and the text-per-day frequency averaged at 4.2, adding up to 30,200 words a year.
If participants being texting in their teens and continue to do so until they are 80, they will end up texting a total of 1,993,200 words, the study surmised.
A NetVoucherCodes.co.uk spokesperson commented: "The current 20-30 age bracket are the first generation to have grown up with mobile phones and most likely will be using them well into their old age.
"It’s staggering to think that we will text almost two million words over the course of our lifetime – this will probably increase for each subsequent generation as they become more reliant on instantaneous communication.
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"The other phenomenon associated with texting is of course ‘text-speak’ to the extent that much of it has seeped into modern usage, the most famous being LOL."
One respondent said: "My mobile phone has pretty much become a part of me. It has my emails, my contacts and even my diary – I am completely lost without it.
"I’m quite a prolific texter and tend to write long messages but think often the slower people are at typing the shorter their messages tend to be."
Another man said: "I send at least eight or nine texts a day and what really hacks me off is predictive text and autocorrect. My phone has a nasty habit of changing stuff which I only notice after I’ve sent the message."
