BTW, text messages now the best THX

TEXT messages have overtaken phone calls as our preferred way of communicating, with more than one in three people revealing they prefer texting family and friends than calling them.

Just one third of people said they still preferred an old-fashioned phone call, according to a survey of our phone habits.

And while Optus may have recently experienced a 10 per cent exodus in customers due to the hacking scandal, most people surveyed by Boost Mobile found they had been with their existing providers for three years or more, with those aged 45 to 64 the most loyal.

The world’s biggest youthfocused telco also found 90 per cent of people had changed their purchasing habits in response to cost-of-living pressures, with many reviewing grocery and petrol purchases.

Daily groceries were the biggest concern for 80 per cent of Australians, followed by petrol and transport (61 per cent), electricity (57 per cent), cost of rent or mortgage (55 per cent) and phone costs (20 per cent).

Boost Mobile’s Jason Haynes said the findings exposed the “significant financial hardship” facing Australians which “may be going unreported”.

“Despite mobile phone costs being of concern to many Australians, the majority have not reviewed or changed their mobile phone provider,” Mr Haynes said.

Technology expert and EFTM chief executive Trevor Long said the death of the landline and decline in calls, especially among younger people, was not surprising.

For those aged 25-34, texts were used the most (35 per cent), while 24 per cent of people in this age group preferring to communicate through Facebook Messenger.

“Just think about how often you see kids talking on a phone, you don’t see it ... A phone call today is more likely to be an emergency of some sort than anything else,” Mr Long said.

“The simplicity of a text, the ability to text in groups, share images, GIFS, memes, location is just far better than trying to convey those things via phone call.”