There was a time when absent friends and lovers would put pen to paper to exchange news or express their feelings.

New figures suggest Britain is now obsessed with the instant gratification - and bad punctuation - of text messaging. More than 16 billion text messages were sent last year, an average of more than 45 million a day, one for every mobile phone user in the country.

The Department of Trade and Industry, which produced the figures, believes the so-called "textual revolution" will increase again this year to around 55 million messages.

And the bad news does not stop there for romantic types. Text message traffic, the DTI said, was particularly high on Valentine's Day last year when 57 million messages were sent.

The department expects no fewer that 70 million messages to be sent tomorrow, five times the number of Valentine's cards which will be received.

Not surprisingly, the mobile phone companies are pleased by the figures. Bryony Clow, spokeswoman for Vodafone, said text messaging was becoming ever more popular not only with schoolchildren swapping gossip but with young adults setting up social gatherings, businessmen arranging meetings and parents and grandchildren wanting to find new ways of connecting with the younger generation.

The government believes new developments such a picture messaging and third generation technology which allows customers to view video footage are also expected to increase the number of people using their phones, but not their voices, to communicate.