Canadians increasingly going wireless   

Text messaging and e-mail dominate the wireless world

txt msgN n Emsg domin8 wireless www ax$. Can’t read that sentence easily? Then you may still be tethered to a desktop PC or perhaps even — gasp! — on dial-up, rather than using a wireless device such as a phone, PDA or BlackBerry to access the Internet, as do one quarter of Canadians. 
    The latest figures from the Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report show a whopping 82 per cent of Canadians accessed the Internet (from all locations including home, work, school, wireless access, etc.) in the second quarter of 2006, up from 77 per cent a year ago. Wireless Internet access (through a Web-enabled cellphone or PDA) continues to inch upwards, hitting 21 per cent this quarter. 
    And that first sentence? Text messaging and e-mail dominate wireless Internet access. Two-thirds of Internet users who also have a wireless device have used it to receive (64 per cent) or send (63 per cent) text messages, also called SMS messages. Nearly half of those send a text message a few times per week (17 per cent daily; 30 per cent a few times per week) and a nearly equal number receive these messages (17 per cent daily, 26 per cent a few times per week). It’s e-mail on the go, and it’s already huge. 
    Nearly half of Internet users with a wireless device use it for sending and receiving e-mail. Of those who do, nearly half receive e-mail on a wireless device at least once a day (46 per cent), while almost four in 10 send e-mail at least once a day (37 per cent). Many Internet users who employ a wireless device to access the Internet have downloaded a ringtone (40 per cent) or a screensaver (24 per cent), although these activities are not conducted with great frequency.

Beyond messaging

Wireless devices aren’t just for teenagers to send cryptic messages anymore, either. More than one-quarter of Internet users with a wireless device have used it to check news headlines (27 per cent), with 38 per cent of those doing so at least once per day. One in eight use a wireless device to check sports headlines (13 per cent), and almost one in 10 use it to check stock quotes (seven per cent).

So, will our future be a graveyard of computer monitors and modems and acres of unused cables? Mobile phones could soon rival the PC as the dominant Internet platform around the globe, and access to low-cost, high-speed and wireless Internet service is driving laptop sales around the world. The paperless office myth has been debunked, but the portable office premise is showing promise. What kind of communication shift this implies rests with how tethered we want to be to our wireless devices. Do they represent freedom, or are we evolving into device-laden, always-on cyborg people? We will have to keep watching. 
    In the meantime, c%d U pls pik ˆ moo on yr wA hom? thx.