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If you can't read the headline, you might be still tethered to a desktop PC or perhaps even--gasp!--on dial-up, rather than using a wireless device such as a phone, PDA, or BlackBerry to access the Internet like one quarter of Canadians.

The latest figures from the Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report show a whopping 82% of Canadians accessed the Internet (from any location, including at home, work, school, or wireless access) in the second quarter of 2006, an increase from 77% a year ago. Wireless Internet access (through a web-enabled cellular phone or personal digital assistant) continues to inch upwards as well, hitting 21% this quarter.

And the headline says it all: Text Messaging and Email Dominate Wireless Internet Access. Two-thirds of Internet users who also have a wireless device have used it to receive (64%) or send (63%) an SMS (text) message. Nearly half of those ever using a wireless device for text messaging send a text message a few times per week (17% daily; 30% a few times per week) and a nearly equal number receive these messages (17% daily; 26% a few times per week). It's email on the go, and it's already huge.

Wireless devices aren't just for teenagers to send cryptic messages to one another anymore either. Nearly half of Internet users with a wireless device use that device for sending and receiving email. Of those that use their wireless device for email, nearly half receive email on a wireless device at least once a day (46%), while almost four in ten send email at least once a day (37%). Many Internet users using a wireless device to access the Internet have downloaded a ringtone (40%) or a screensaver (24%), although these activity is not conducted with a great deal of frequency.

More than one-quarter of Internet users with a wireless device have used it to check news headlines (27%), with 38% of those mentioning doing so at least once per day. One in eight use a wireless device to check sports headlines (13%), and almost one in ten use it to check stock quotes (7%).

Does our future beckon with a graveyard of CRT monitors and modems and acres of unused cables? Perhaps. Mobile phones could soon rival the PC as the dominant Internet platform around the globe, and access to low cost, high-speed, and wireless Internet service is propelling laptop and notebook sales around the world. The paperless office myth has been debunked, but the portable office premise is showing promise. What kind of communication shift this implies rests with how tethered we want to be to our wireless devices. Do they represent freedom, or are we evolving into device-laden always-on cyborg-like people? We will have to keep watching. In the meantime, c%d U pls pik ^ moo on yr wA hom? thx.

This article was written for Backbone Magazine based on data from the Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report. Look in future issues of Backbone Magazine for the results of the Ipsos Reid readers poll.