The phone has never been my favorite way of communicating. When I discovered text messaging, I felt like the whole world of written mobile interaction was created for people just like me -- phone shy and bumbling.

However, the ease with which people can communicate without the face-to-face or voice-to-voice confrontation has created a new social phenomenon: the text message break-up. Britney Spears, for instance, broke up with husband Kevin Federline via text message. (I wonder if predicta-text knows the word 'divorce'). Now I've never been a big fan of the K-Fed, but I have to say, ending a marriage via text message is really heartless. Scumbag that he is, K-Fed still deserves to be told that his marriage is over to his face.

The popularity of text messaging among young people suggests that many important life decisions are now being carried out over mobile phone networks. Clear statistics are hard to find, but a survey carried out by Swiss messaging services found that 9 percent of mobile phone users admitted to having dumped a boyfriend or girlfriend by sending a text message.