Students would prefer to receive their exam results in the form of a text message on their mobile phone, claims a survey.

The poll, published by mobile phone company Orange, says that teenagers would rather get the news straight onto their phone, rather than depend on the postman.

This would allow them to get their results while on holiday and would not mean having to come back to open the ominous brown envelopes.

Text messaging has already been used to help students to revise for GCSEs this year, in a scheme run by Knowsley local authority.

And in anti-truancy drives in London and Leicester, parents have been sent text messages if their children are missing from school.

Sending text messages has become the favoured means of communication for many teenagers, with its rise accompanying the rapid spread in mobile phone ownership.

The increase in use of mobile phones by young people has also brought another type of exchange - in the form of customised ring tones, based on pop songs or a television theme.

But anyone who has suffered from teenagers' "amusing" ring tones might take pleasure from the development of software designed to block the downloading of ring tones.

Educational computer company, Research Machines, has developed a filter that stops school computers being used by pupils to download ring tones.