The year was 2005, when I first entered my Engineering
College (Oh, it feels sad to realize that it was nine years ago when I had put
my first step in the field of Engineering.Time passes by so quickly making one
oblivious to the fact that one is actually growing older every passing day). It
was then that I had got my first ever Mobile phone, Nokia 2600 a budget phone
with a colour display (an added attraction then).
That was an era of prepaid sim cards and a postpaid card
used to be the luxury of the rich. Living on the pocket money and the calling
rates being high, we usually suffered from the low balance or for that matter a
Zero Balance syndrome. It was when this little angel called the SMS (Short
Message Service) came to our rescue.
Being aware of this 'Balance deficiency' amongst the youth the
Service providers designed various SMS friendly packs. For e.g..: Recharge with
Rs. 51 and get 1000 SMS free. This meant we could actually communicate with
others via text messaging even if the talk time available was zero. This was
something to be proud of and thus began the Love Affair between the SMS and the
Youth.
Be it a Happy Birthday or a Condolence message.
Be it a Happy Diwali or an Id Mubarak.
Be it an I Love You or an I am sorry, this little pigeon carried
them all.
SMS was not only a mode of communication but also the mode
of entertainment.
Be it a Santa Banta joke or the so called 'Non-Veg' joke,
SMS had seen them all.
As time passed by the Mobile Phone became a
necessity and the SMS became the part and parcel of our lives.
Hardly had we thought that we have achieved a
big milestone in the world of communication when the game changed.
With the advent of technology, mobile phones
became 'Smart' and it was now possible to access the whole world of the World
Wide Web on this hand held device.
2G, 3G, Wifi (ani Kai kai!!! Meaning: what not)
accelerated the speed with which the internet was surfed. Opening new horizons,
our mail box, our Skype, our Facebook everything said "Hello" on the
smart phone.
But again this did not stop here, with
GPRS(General Packet Radio Service) available at a dirt cheap price, many
Messaging Services like Whatsapp and Telegram were born. These are in a way a
new generation of SMS but being run on the Data Pack and consuming hardly a few
bytes, one recharge of a GPRS pack can actually help one with a plethora of
messages that too in runtime. One just needs to be online at the same time with
another and these services actually behave
like an Online Chat. (The same chat which had once rocked the whole Web arena).
But in this race of fast mode of communication,
our old friend SMS somewhere lost its track and moreover as you at least need to
pay a small sum for a limited number of SMS, an SMS pack, is never hundred
percent free. Also it doesn't run in runtime making it a misfit for the
"Last Seen at" loving generation.
Conclusion, SMS has lost its popularity today.
This doesn't mean that one doesn't come across SMS at all but if one receives
ten SMS today then it is more likely that nine are of telemarketing (yes those
good for nothing messages from VM, DM, LM etc.)
Losing its real purpose i.e. of communication,
we are in an era when SMS is dead.
But one can never forget the contribution of SMS
in the world of communication and thus whenever the history of communication technology will be written; this little angel will have a chapter written on
her in Golden Letters.
R.I.P. SMS...
