Britons are text maniacs with 11 million sent per hour

The people of the UK send 11 million text messages to each other every hour.

So says the Mobile Data Association (MDA) in its report concerning our phone habits in 2009.

That’s 265 million texts per day. And almost 100 billion (97 to be precise) over the course of the year – with only 600 million of those being picture messages, a surprisingly low figure.

The real question, though, is how many of those 100 billion texts simply read “LOL”. Quite a few, we’d bet.

The 97 billion is a figure which is well up on previous years – 2008 saw 79 billion texts, and 2007 57 billion.

As MDA points out, the rise of social networking sites and keeping in touch on those doesn’t seem to have dampened text communication in the slightest.

Steve Reynolds, MDA Chairman, said: “The majority of mobile phone users know how to quickly send a text message, wherever they happen to be. It will still be some time before the same can be said for other social messaging forms.”