Interesting Facts

1984 - The world's worst industrial disaster took place when 42 tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the Union Carbide subsidiary pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal, India. More than 500,000 people were exposed to the toxic gases, with the symptoms bearing all the hallmarks of cyanide poisoning. The first official death toll was 2,259. A more probable figure is that 8,000 people died within two weeks. It is estimated that around 20,000 people have died from gas-related diseases since the disaster. http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/11/28/india-bhopal-gas-union-carbide-dow-idINKCN0JC0WC20141128 1992 - The first text message was sent.  

According to a survey conducted by OnePoll.com 70% of Brits admit to regularly sending text messages to the wrong person, and over 40% said they had been on the receiving end of a message clearly intended for someone else. (The survey revealed that people are most likely to send emails to the wrong people via text message, followed by desktop email, smartphone email, tablet email and WhatsApp. Some people have even lost their job by accidentally sending inappropriate stuff to their boss. One texter, ended up sending his driving instructor, 'a big, butch bloke' called Harry, a message thst was meant for his wife Hannah, saying that he loved him and discussing what they should have for dinner I've had people posting to my public forum page instead of in a private message - you know who you are. My advice? Slow down, and check before clicking "Send".)

According to a study run by vouchercloud.com, 79% of office workers in the UK waste 4 hours and 22 minutes every day. (On average respondents believed that they actually did 2 hours and 53 minutes of productive work. The favourite pastimes that eat up "productive" time were:- 1.       Checking social media – 47% 2.       Reading news websites – 45% 3.       Discussing out of work activities with colleagues – 38% 4.       Making hot drinks – 31% 5.       Smoking breaks – 28% 6.       Texting /instant messaging – 27% 7.       Eating snacks – 25% 8.       Making food in office – 24% 9.       Making calls to partner/ friends- 24% 10.   Searching for new jobs – 19% Average time spent on each distraction: 1.       Checking social media – 44 minutes 2.       Reading news websites – 1 hour 5 minutes ...

To any teenager who thinks text speak is "new", letters have revealed that Queen Victoria regularly used modern-day contractions such as ‘shd’ and ‘wd’, instead of should and would. (For example, in one note about a visit to Balmoral she wrote:- ‘I have never invited the Duke of Atholl to come over with his men and I think it wd. be better not to do so this year. It wd. entail the encampment of his men in our grounds wh. wd. be inconvenient.’  Not only that, but she had pretty awful handwriting too:-   I just wish I'd known this at school.  My English teacher always marked down my work because of my poor penmanship.) 

According to German security expert, Karten Nohl, an eighth of all SIM cards used in mobile phones around the world are at risk of fraud, theft, or being bugged. (Once infected, hackers can remotely access the phone and send premium rate text messages, steal money and personal information, record calls, bug owners to track their location, and other naughty things. They'll be lucky to find my phone switched on.) Source

According to best-selling author, Jacqueline Wilson, children from Eastern Europe, Spain and Portugal all have better spelling and grammar than British children. (She receives hundreds of fan letters each week, and told The Independent, that her young overseas fans write more eloquent English than UK kids, she said, "They’re writing in English, and apologising for their English, yet these letters will be more grammatical and spelt more properly than [those from] our own children! Spelling doesn’t seem to be something that happens [at school]. I don’t think it is being taught. Many children don’t even bother to try to write properly, resorting to 'text language'". I dunno wot u r tryin 2 say Jacklynn.)

According to a report the Halifax Insurance Digital Home Index, over 50% of people in the UK text or email friends and family in the next room. (I did it once, and that was for a joke. Since then I just do what I always did and yell through the door.)

Now that Valentine's Day is over for another year, here's a cautionary warning.  Over the past year in the UK, over £24 million pounds has been conned out of people in what is being called, romance fraud, (The UK's National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) has recorded in excess of more than 1,000 victims being conned out of around £21,600 each.  This can often involve the person's life savings. Tony Neate, CEO of Get Safe Online, said “As more of us bring our personal lives into the virtual world, it’s crucial that people are extra vigilant about the information they share. Sometimes we need to use our heads ahead of our hearts to ensure we don’t fall victim to romance fraud." Here is a check-list of things to watch out for:- The new love of your life looks like a supermodel in the pictures they send you. They ask you lots of questions about yourself but don’t tell you much about themselves. They quickly start calling you by a pet name or use endearing te...

According to an Ofcom survey, texting has overtaken voice calling as our preferred method of communication. (Brits now send on average 50 text messages a week, and in 2011 we spent 5 per cent less time on the phone than in 2010. In fact 58 per cent of adults send text messages each day to friends and family. I have to admit I don't phone people as often as I used to, but I don't text either, I use Google talk.)

According to research from mobile network O2, smartphones are hardly ever used to make a phone call. (Most people use their smartphone for surfing the web, checking social networks or playing games. The research found that the average smartphone owner spends more than two hours each day using the device. Here's a breakdown of what they use it for. Browsing the internet - 25 minutes  Social networking - 17 minutes Playing games - 13 minutes  Listening to music - 16 minutes Making phone calls - 11 minutes Text messaging - 10 minutes Taking photographs - 3 minutes Even though people only spend three minutes a day taking photographs, photography was the most popular thing to use a smartphone for, 74 per cent said that they had taken photos with their handset. For me all the above is true apart from playing games and texting. I have never played a game on my Motorola Droid, and I send about 10 texts a year. In fact my smartphone gets about 30 minutes use a day, I prefer...

People in Fort Lee who are caught texting on their mobile phones while walking face being fined  $85 (£53). (In the last month-and-a-half, at least 117 tickets have been issued for jaywalking.  That's $9,945.00.  Nice work if you can get it.)

Sexting is a mix of two terms - Sex and Texting. (Seemingly sexting (a word I only just learnt because of the previous post) is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs, primarily between mobile phones. The participants are usually teenagers or 'tweens', who seem to enjoy creating and exchanging provocative messages and nude, sexual images of themselves using their cell phone’s built-in digital camera and text messaging capabilities. The term was first popularized around 2005, but I only just found out about it because of the previous post)! My advice to anyone who thinks this sounds cool is, if you wouldn't want your granny to see it, don't send it.)

According to a report by Ofcom, in 2010 an average of five text messages per day were sent for every person in the UK. (Of course not every person in the UK sent a message, I very rarely text people, but the rest made up for it. No wonder texting isn't free any more.)

A study carried out for National Family Week, which takes place from the 30th of May till the 5th of June, found that parents need to send at least 600 texts, 312 emails and spend more than 1500 minutes on the phone every year just to keep track of their offspring. (The report also found that 20 per cent of parents said that social networking websites like Facebook were the best place to find out what their off springs were doing. Or maybe it's only what they want you to think they are really doing.) Source

According to the director of the department of typography and graphic communication at the University of Reading, capital letters used to portray formality. (Seemingly, in Ancient Rome emperors' great deeds were written in capital letters. In fact lowercase letters in the Latin alphabet, which English is based on, developed as a faster way to write. Since then of course we've invented texting, so eat your heart out Romans.)

Britons send as many text messages in a week now as they did in the whole of 1999. (Some 4.825bn texts were sent in September 2007, equivalent to 4,000 every second. Just imagine all those thumbs flying over the tiny little keys.)

26.4 million text messages were sent to "UNITE" in support of the Live 8 cause.