I think texting (also called SMS) is a valuable new social technology. Are you aware of its prevalence?
If you divide the number of Americans by the number of text messages or phone calls per month you get the following average figures: 357 text messages per person per month, compared with 204 phone calls.
Texting has one advantage over phoning: speed.
You can deliver a similar message by text without the social necessities required for talking to that same person; that saves time. You get the same asynchronous advantage of voice mail but it is almost always faster to read a message than listen to it.
Speed. We obviously want it and we are obviously getting it.