At 20, SMS feels the age as tweets, IM take over

Nearly 20 years after influencing the way a large number of people around the world interact in daily life, the SMS, or short messaging service, appears to be on the decline.

Used by four billion people around the world, this revolutionary form of communication took the world by storm after its birth in December 1992. But after two decades of feverishly pushing tiny keypads with our thumbs, the volume of texts sent as SMS has undergone decline, media watchdog Ofcom reports.

The number of text messages sent in Britain peaked at 39.7 billion at the end of last year, but it is now down to 38.5 billion, following two quarterly declines. This fall has been attributed to new forms of communication which have taken over from the basic SMS system, Daily Mail reported.

Owners of modern smartphones today have a plethora of ways to communicate with each other including Tweeting and instant messaging.

The first ever text sent by engineer Neil Papworth from his personal computer to Vodafone's Richard Jarvis in December 1992 read: "Merry Christmas".