Flirty Brits blow 3 billion a year texting

You're lovely, fancy a date?

According to price comparison service uSwitch, a poll of 2000 adults reveals that the Brits send 235 million flirty text messages a month. We're a romantic lot. That equates to 3 billion quid a year. It's not clear whether this has seasonal variations - Valentines, office Xmas party season etc but it's a huge amount.

Interestingly around forty percent of adults are more likely to send a message than use the phone to call to arrange a first date. Perhaps it's cheaper? I hope they at least bother to spell it out properly rather than use ghastly textspeak - somehow fncy a d8 wouldn't work for me. It all seems just a little bit cowardly to me.

UR DMPD

The survey also reveals that:

• nearly 6 million people in Britain have been dumped by text
• one in four never let their partners read their sent and received text messages saying 'some things are just too personal'
• around half have sent a text they later regret

Perhaps most disturbing of all, 3 million Brits apparently send 'saucy' picture messages to their dates. The mind boggles.