The traditional greeting card could be on the road to extinction, as Europeans en-mass turn to the convenience of the text message. 

According to data released by the Mobile Data Association, Brits sent 1.3 billion text messages during the month of March, up 100 million from February, swapping the traditional Easter Card in favor of the text message. Another massive jump is expected for April with the exchange of April Fool Day jokes.

The MDA's first quarter figures showed a steady growth in texting across the four British GSM network operators with a record 3.9 billion messages, representing over 43 million messages per day. 

Britons are not the only ones obsessed as mobile users worldwide have taken to texting across the airwaves. A staggering 75 billion text messages were sent in the first quarter of this year, representing an increase of 50 percent, according to the GSM Association. It is predicting a total of 360 billion for 2002, up from 250 billion reached during 2001. 

For more information: http://www.text.it