Short forms

Well yeah it only gives you so many characters to send. I was like that in the beginning as well that I didnt' know much. But hey just ask thats all you have to do. If you dont understand just ask them what it means. That is how you will start to learn them quicker. Hoped I helped happy mylotting' maria

lol! -- oops, sorry! I think it saves time and money.. It's like learning a new language. Now after we learn this language.. we can say we are bi-lingual!! :) I luv it... cul8r!!

That started when phones first became available because the bandwith on the early analogue phones was limited, so in order to cram as much into a message as possible, people started to use abbreviations. It's not necessary to do so with a modern digital phone, but people continue to do so out of lazyness - it's a lot easier to use three keystrokes to type "ppl" than it is to type "people" out fully. It annoys me though when people use it in making posts here. I think that is just really lazy and unacceptable. I tend to just ignore posts here that use text a lot.

The most common reason would because of the phone bill. But hey, don't worry... even a person who's been using a mobile phone for a long time still can't understand a lot of these short forms in SMS-ing.

Few cellphones allows only limited characters to send and we cant type stories in text messages....so its better short forms in text messages...I find lazy to type full characters in cellphone as the keypad is thin so I use short forms in text messages...Happy mylotting :)

It is because using short forms of the word makes it easier and faster to type on your keypad. It's for convenience, period.