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CONSTANT fiddling with the handphone may irk most people around us, but for 18-year-old Mr Sng Gim Jeramy, having restless thumbs has paid off handsomely.
Mr Sng, a Republic Polytechnic student, won the SingTel SMS shootout 2008 held on Sunday.
The winner of the individual category walked away with a trophy, $12,000 cash and more than $4,000 worth of prizes, including a Sony Cyber-shot digital camera and a brand new Nokia E90 mobile phone for him to practise on for next year's competition.
Almost 200 participants participated in this year's individual contest.
And for the first time ever, the Couple's Challenge was also organised by SingTel, bringing together friends and siblings to type in text on a relay basis.
Contestants had to type this set text provided by Guinness : 'The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.'
Mr Sng emerged the champ with a record timing of 41.40 seconds, beating the current Singapore record of 41.52 seconds set in 2006.
This was Mr Sng's first shootout attempt. He was initially reluctant to take part but was persuaded by his girlfriend to give it a shot.
'She was always saying how fast I was able to reply to my SMSes,' said the aerospace avonics students, who often carries out SMS conversations with up to five people at one time.
He has cut down on his SMSes since his secondary school days, when he could clock up to 2,000 text messages a month. Now he sends out about 30 SMSes a day.
Mr Sng, who has an elder brother, 21, and whose mother is a Human Resource manager in Citibank and his father, a taxi driver, says he's the only hooked on tech gadgets in his family.
He practised for two hours daily over the last few weeks before the SMS contest.
'I practised with a rubber handphone cover so during the actual competition, my fingers can fly over the buttons,' he said of his training tactic which was inspired by how Olympic runners practise with tires tied to them.
On his record feat, he said: 'I am very excited and was surprised by my timing as I faced very strong competition.' His timing was also a huge improvement from the 59 seconds he clocked at the initial trials.
SingTel will be submitting Mr Sng's record to Guinness for its consideration.
'We are delighted that SingTel has led Singapore in setting a potential world record for the fastest SMS again', said Mr Wong Soon Nam, SingTel's Vice-President of Consumer Marketing.
He added that SingTel recognised the important part SMS plays among today's youth and has launched a student mobile plan that offers free unlimited SMS-es between SingTel subscribers.
The winners for the Couple's Challenge were Mr Ang Chuang Yang and Mr Goh Hong Chen with a timing of 1.29 minutes. They brought home $500 cash and two Sony Playstations.
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