The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, as reported by the Globe and Mail, has released new stats on Canadian usage of a relatively old school form of electronic messaging: texting. 

In 2010, 56.4 billion texts were sent in Canada, up 60% from the 35.3 billion sent the previous year.  Of those texts sent in 2010, about 2.3 billion were of the common short code text variety, which are often used to interact with businesses and charities.  That was up 36% over 2009.

But be aware, while year-over-year growth in texting is still very high, the overall rate is slowing.  The number of texts sent in 2009 was up 70% over the previous year, while in 2008 there was an annual increase of 105%.