As for texting, you know a lot of places use it for legitimate reasons, right? For example, you can order a saved favorite order from Pizza Hut by texting a keyword of your choice to a certain number. Way faster than ordering something online or calling in an order.
My school sends out text messages for class cancellations and closings.
In addition, the network management software we have here at work sends us a text message if one of our nodes goes down for whatever reason.
Texting isn't completely useless.