Text messaging, or
texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages between two or more mobile phones, or fixed or portable devices over a phone network. The term originally referred to messages sent using the
Short Message Service (SMS). It has grown to include multimedia messages (known as
MMS) containing images, videos, and sound content, as well as ideograms known as
emoji. The service itself has different
colloquialisms depending on the region. It may simply be referred to as a
text in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines, an
SMS in most of mainland Europe, or an
MMS or
SMS in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The sender of a text message is commonly referred to as a
texter.