For years, texting has been the go-to mode of electronic communication among youth, but there are signs that could be changing. Text messaging is on the wane, according to a new study from Chetan Sharma, a mobile industry analyst. The average American sent or received about 678 texts a month in the third quarter of 2012, down from an all-time high of 696 texts the previous quarter. Is it possible that texters didn’t have as much to say in September? Maybe, but it marks the first drop ever in texting, and analysts believe it could mark a quantum shift in how we communicate with each other—away from phone-based texting to messaging on social network platforms. “With social networking and other platforms, they really take the messaging feature away from that usual channel,” says Wayne Lam, an analyst for HIS Technology. “Consumers are messaging, but text messaging as a whole is competing with other forms of messaging.” (Time)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com, and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife Wendy and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.