Lately, I’ve come to realize that Twitter is taking over my former means of mobile communication.

I recently received my cellphone bill and last month I sent and received around 600 text messages total. This is down from my normal 1500 – 2000 a month stats. While I was a tad surprised, it made me wonder whether I twittered more than I text messaged these days.

All Stats Point To Twitter

Corvida’s TweetStats – http://www.tweetstats.com/graphs/corvida

Last month I sent over 1000 tweets, compared to 600 text messages. Twitter is definitely replacing text messaging as my primary source of quick and short communication. One reason behind this is that I’ve stopped texting some of my friends back. I’d rather they just tweet or call me. On another note, most of my social life is now online.

This isn’t the only form of communication that Twitter is taking over for me. My minute usage is also down tremendously. I only used around 700 minutes last month compared to 1200 on average.

Twitter Helps Effectively Build Relationships

One of the best things about Twitter is being able to grow your own network. I have 550+ followers and wouldn’t dare try to keep in touch with them all through my phone. For one, that’s too many minutes used. Second, you can’t just call everyone and everyone is not going to give you their number.

However, to grow your network, you need to be able to keep in touch with people and for some the socializing aspect needs to be consistent. You can be easily forgotten with well over 500 people vying for attention. Twitter effectively allows us to keep our names in the running without worrying about disrupting someone’s work schedule or calling “at a bad time.”

Maybe I Don’t Have A Life

Offline, I’ve already established relationships and it has never been necessary for me to constantly talk to my friends. Also, my groups of offline friends are much smaller than my Twitter followings.

On the other hand, a few of my “online friends” are beginning to spill into my offline life. What I mean by that is that I’m talking to them over the phone and even looking forward to meeting them over the summer.

Are you experiencing similar shifts? If so, what are your causes? Has an increase in your followers on Twitter played a role in the decrease of other mobile communication usage?