REUTERS

Mexico City's government is offering a free app for BlackBerrys that will alert users when a major earthquake is approaching.

London - Cellphone text messaging could become extinct as millions of youngsters switch to other forms of electronic communication.

Teenagers are increasingly turning to “instant messaging” from mobile phones and social networking sites such as Facebook.

Experts predict the number of texts sent in the UK will drop by 20 percent in the next two years.

It comes as teenagers and students are favouring BlackBerries to iPhones and other smartphones because it has the free BBM instant messenger platform, used by 39 million people across the world. Unlike text messages, the BBM service is free for BlackBerry users - even “pay as you go” customers - and there is no restriction on the number of characters in each message.

Sales of the phone, that was once the preserve of high-powered businessmen, have increased six-fold during the last year alone.

Industry experts believe that if this trend is followed into adulthood, text messaging could disappear within a generation.

Instant messaging is extremely similar to texting, but faster and cheaper. The technology behind text messaging is nearly 20 years old and relies on phone networks. In contrast, instant messaging uses the internet, allowing for text-based conversations “in real time”.

Richard Windsor, a mobile analyst at financial services group Nomura, said: “Once text messaging starts to decline, I think it could continue to decline until it hits zero.”

A recent report found that instant messaging will also overtake emails, before making them extinct.

Last November, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg declared that “email is dead” as he launched the new instant messaging service on his social networking website. - Daily Mail