Brunmarde.com

Researchers examined how different professions wrote text messages and divided them into four groups - creatives, jugglers, controllers and facilitators.

Creatives - actors, designers, advertising executives and landscape gardeners - said they used the latest text abbreviations and slang, varied between using capital letters and lower case, used customised ring tones and screen settings and lost their phone frequently.

Jugglers - teachers, office workers and emergency service workers - used capitals, lower cases and punctuation correctly, never lost their phones and knew where they were in their bags and tended to grip their phone between their chin and shoulder while talking.

Controllers - armed forces, lawyers and sales reps - always used capitals and never abbreviated but only sent short messages. They tended to have loud ringing tones and to speak loudly on public transport.

Facilitators - nurses, nannies, personal assistants - always used lower case and added characters like smiley faces. They tended to use patterned or coloured cases for their handsets and were more likely to set their phone to vibrate so it did not disturb other people.

Psychologist Sidney Crown said text message style was as revealing as handwriting and suggested children's messages could reveal what kind of job they would suit in future.