Texting is really popular in Britain many people send hundreds each week, they get say 300 or 500 free text messages a month and somehow they seem to use them all up.In Japan, texting is free. It is considered extremely rude to talk on your cell phone in crowded places, like the Metro, or in a store, so folks text each other all the time. When we were riding from place to place, my friend would text her daughter, who was across the aisle on the train from us. LOL!
It is often quite common for people in Britain to text each other even if very close maybe not same room but next door at work for example. If your office is across the corridor they may well text jokes to each other though email in our company has recently taken over from that.