Communication and Marketing in a Mobilized World: Diary Research on 'Generation Txt'

These few words attempt to understand why young people send each other text messages. The paper presents a textual analysis of the function, form and flow of text traffic produced and consumed by 105 young people. Over a weeklong period they kept qualitative diaries, dubbed 'text-books,’ detailing their incoming and outgoing tally of texts. It is proposed that the themes of efficiency, discretion, crudity, frankness, and novelty collectively conspire to make texting an attractive proposition to young people. The paper concludes by sounding a note of caution to marketers eager to embrace the medium of SMS marketing.