Student Texted About Quitting Texting While Driving Off Cliff, Lived

In yet another example of why you shouldn’t text and drive, an Alabama college student drove off a cliff while texting.

Fortunately, he survived, but incurred some serious injuries. After six months of recovering, he’s finally able to talk about it.

Right before Chance Both’s truck went over a cliff, he texted, “I need to quit texting, because I could die in a car accident.”

Both suffered a broken neck, a crushed face, a fractured skull and traumatic brain injuries, a local news station reported. He was brought back to life three times by doctors.

Lately, texting while walking has been an increasing issue for law enforcement. Distracted walkers can cause accidents or get themselves into dangerous situations.

We told you earlier this week about a Philadelphia man being so distracted by talking on his cellphone, that he fell onto train tracks and was knocked unconscious. Luckily for him, no trains were headed to the station at that time.

Cellphone distraction also infamously caused a man to nearly walk into a brown bear and resulted in one woman’s embarrassing moment falling into a mall fountain.

Earlier this summer, we asked you if you think texting while walking should be illegal. The majority of you said no, but had strong opinions about the dangers of texting and walking.

Do you know anyone who texts while driving or walking? Tell us in the comments. (Mashable.com)

Texting overtakes calling in U.K., says research

It may be "good to talk," as telecommunications giant BT's adverts had it in the early 1990s, but two decades on, the U.K. has evolved to become a nation of text messagers.

According to research published by the U.K.'s communications regulator, Ofcom, on Monday, text messaging is outstripping actually making a call. Last year 58 percent of people communicated via text messaging on a daily basis, while only 47 percent made a mobile call at least once a day, the watchdog found.

Voice calling is seeing something of a drop in popularity: mobile call volumes were down by 1 percent in 2011 compared to 2010 -- falling from 125 billion minutes in 2010 to 124 billion in 2011 -- yet landline calling declined by 10 percent, despite the cost of making a mobile phone call being around the same as making one on a landline.

Meanwhile, Ofcom's figures show the average U.K. consumer's use of text message is growing: last year, consumers sent an average of around 200 text messages a month -- nearly 17 percent more than the year before.

The UK population could well have been sporting some sore thumbs last year, after sending more than 150 billion text messages.

As might be expected, the teenage and young adult population are driving up the numbers: with the rise of mobile social networking and instant messaging, Ofcom said 96 percent of 16-24 year olds used "some form of text-based application" each day in 2011.

Ofcom's research also found the proportion of the population owning a tablet reached 11 percent in the first quarter of 2012, up from 2 percent in the first quarter of last year. Separately, e-reader ownership now stands at just under 10 percent of the U.K. population, with more than 40 percent of e-reader owners saying that they are reading more thanks to the devices.

Elsewhere, the research showed an ever-increasing broadband connected population, with the U.K reaching 20 million fixed subscriptions in 2011, and notching up another 5 million mobile broadband connections.

All in all, more than three-quarters of all U.K. homes were plugged into a broadband connection by the first quarter of this year.

Text Message Marketing

As brands focus efforts on keeping up with broadcasting trends across social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, many are neglecting a tried and true marketing tactic that could propel them even further: narrowcasting.

Narrowcasting marks an emerging trend by which consumers are sharing content with smaller, more selective audiences. In contrast to broadcasting, narrowcasting is about tailoring information to better compel the recipients. It’s a competitive alternative, as evidenced by this infographic from Mogreet. While broadcasting gets a brand’s message out to a massive group of people, when it comes to who is actually reading and engaging with the content, the numbers are staggeringly low.

For example, 84% of Facebook news feed stories aren’t viewed, 71% of tweets get ignored and 88% of emails go unopened. Meanwhile, 98% of text messages are opened, and therefore, companies that market through SMS/MMS have a far truer reach.

Do these statistics surprise you? If you’re a broadcaster, does this graphic make you want to give narrowcasting a try? Share with us in the comments.

Source: Mashable