30 years have passed since the first text. This is how far civilization has fallen

It’s not always easy to have a true perspective on life.

It’s going so fast these days it feels like it’s dragging us down.

Technology, of course, bears considerable responsibility. It is made to speed things up. It is made to speed up our pulse and brain function. It is made to destroy life as we know it.

So begins my sermon on the 30th anniversary of SMS. Yes, on December 3, 1992, 22-year-old software architect Neil Papworth texted his colleague Richard Jarvis with heartfelt feelings.

The text read: “Merry Christmas”.

Well, Papworth is British, so, you know, don’t expect too much effusive sentiment, unless it’s about Europe.

So here we are 30 years later. We text, we sext, and we get upset so often. How, however, has texting changed civilization?

Conveniently, I have in front of me the results of a survey conducted by Infobip. It claims to be, sigh, “the most connected cloud communications platform in the world.”

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Doesn’t that just roll off your tongue and onto your keyboard?

I will tell you though that Infobip is a Croatian company. My closest contact there, Dario Vince, creator of the wonderful new TV series Metropolitanci, tells me that Infobip is a hugely respected company in that country.

But what about Infobip’s research on texting?

Perhaps many of the results are predictable. Only 45.2% of Americans admit to sending sexts. 54.8% of Americans wanted to talk to their lawyer first.

And would you believe that only 27% of millennials admit to texting since a funeral? Funerals are really boring, aren’t they? Yet only 22% of Gen Zers and 12% of Gen Xers admit to doing the same. A measly 2% of baby boomers have followed this deadly trend.

But what interests me the most is human relations. They reveal so much.

So I delved into the darker details and found myself crying for the future of our species.

I was comforted by the fact that only 14% of baby boomers admitted to having ever sent sexts. But then my heart immediately went in the direction of thrombosis when I learned that 45% of Gen Zers had been dumped by text.

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No one likes to be left behind and most people are, indeed, cowards. But being dumped by the text seems to offer that perfect blend of cowardice and heartlessness. Almost the very definition of Silicon Valley, one might think.

Consider, however, how difficult the road to love really is these days. All is well and then, with a ping from your phone, you are thrown into despair.

This is, apparently, something that only 4% of baby boomers have experienced. Which may begin to explain why they don’t understand young people at all.

Please don’t worry, though. I have worse for you. Much worse.

Because this survey revealed – and I use the expression wisely – that 26% of millennials have been offered by SMS.

Yes, I said proposed.

Yes, as if to propose marriage, this great celestial unity of two lonely beings who finally found each other on a dating app.

I ask you now to consider what is wrong with this world. You want to find the right time, the right atmosphere, the right method to ask your lover to marry you.

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So you text them.

Remarkably, I can still offer hope. Only 17% of Gen Zers say they’ve been proposed via text.

But they are still children, aren’t they? What if they haven’t quite gotten the proposal trick? What if the new real love proposal was really about texting your feelings forever?

We’re done, I tell you. Had finished.