SMS text messaging is dying down.  Smartphone chat apps such as Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger have overtaken SMS text messages for the first time.  According to data collected for the financial times, “Nearly 19billion messages were sent every day worldwide via chat apps last year, versus 17.6billion SMS messages” (Financial Times).  Apps such as WhatsApp allow users to send messages free, paying only for data bills, making them a cheap alternative to SMS.  I personally use texting apps instead of SMS.  You can send unlimited messages over WiFI as opposed to being limited to a number of texts you can send per month.