Email Is For Old People?
from the get-with-the-program dept
A few years ago, we pointed to a report in Asia, where kids were saying that email was for old people, and they were more focused on things like text messaging. This may have just been foreshadowing a larger trend, highlight by an article in Slate about how, just as older generations have embraced emails, kids have moved on to many different forms of communication from instant messaging to text messaging to private messaging through social networks to broadcast messaging through Twitter and Facebook news feeds. And, while it worries the reporter a bit, he's come to accept it and realize that kids are simply figuring out the best, most efficient way to communicate different messages -- where email as a one-size-fits-all communication system is a bit clunky. That's not to say that email is going away any time soon -- but that it's not nearly as important a communication tool as many "older" people seem to assume it is.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: email, generation gap, kids, private messaging, text messaging
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
It's like Casettes
Even if kids move onto these different forms of communication, eMail isn't going anywhere because it was there in the beginning, and is just as integral - if not more so - now than ever.
Plus, eMail has stayed extremely populsar, while these other forms come and go. They may hold interest for some time, but they don't seem to be removing anything from eMails, just adding to communications as a whole.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It's like Casettes
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Guaranteed instant delivery?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Email is open
That said, the other ways to communicate may achieve the same goal of openness. Jabber is already there, and that is the only IM protocol I use. Maybe Opensocial will take us there some day. Until then I keep a foothold on big social platforms, but just to keep my foothold in the namespace.
Open is everything - the rest is details. That is what brought me to the Internet fifteen years ago.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But likewise, am I going to communicate an action plan or discuss something with a customer via AIM or twitter or myspace? Fuck no. IM is for instant communication. Twitter is for pointless, self-involved drivel. Myspace is for idiots who want to consoladate their entire internet experience into a single website (and a single point of failure) just like the good old BBS days, before they were born ---- and email is for people who need to convey important information, delicate information, detailed information or otherwise engage in an actual conversation.
I use IM constantly in my line of work. I'm a developer and our entire company of 45,000 people globally requires that everyone use our own developed commercial messenger (uses XMPP, much like jabber and is for all intents and purposes -- jabber). Most of my colleagues are not even within driving distance. And even if they were, a lot of us telecommute full time. So IM is absolutely a necessity.
But for every IM message, there are a few dozen email messages. Whether it's discussions on an internal list or another. Whether it's communicating with customers or field engineers or team discussions and management discussions to touch base or regarding staffing or action plans.
So yes, young people may just use twitter, IM and myspace today . . . but if they plan to ever have discussions that go beyond what color their crap was and what they're doing at that very instant (OH MY GOD, WE'RE ALL EAGERLY AWAITING YOUR NEXT TWITTER!) and beyond self-involved attention-whoring on myspace or trying to get off with some loser on instant messaging, they'll eventually find themselves forced to gravitate toward email. And if they don't - they'll be shark food for the rest of us in the workforce.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ahem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ahem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ahem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Exactly A.C
I use email to make a living and work on projects which excite and inspire me. If that makes me old then hand me my bus pass.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
old comments
How about you get with the times and use facebook to get your business in the faces of your customers?
Slowly but surely people will realise that facebook etc is a great tool for businesses to tell people about there products. There's millions of people using it after all.
Alot of commenters on here are the typical "old" people at work who expect to be promoted just because there old but dont instead the younger staff get the job.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I hold memberships in several online communities simply because if I want to talk to some people, i have to connect with them through those communities.
It was all simpler back in the day when there was only one or two IM providers and a few online communities.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
popular doesn't mean useful
IM, Twitter, etc are popular, sure. But email is the foundation and core of online communications.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Get a job
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That said, I totally agree with most of the posts that text messaging is for pointless communication. I only use email. I'm only 23 and all of sudden I feel old.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme
Hang onto and proselytize old technology at your own peril...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Secondly, almost every comment here has just confirmed what the article said. Kid's supposedly think e-mail is for old people. And all of the commenters (who I presume to be older) are saying they use e-mail all of the time -- to talk to clients. How many kids do you know with clients?
While I'm not considered old by any means at 23, I rarely use e-mail outside of my job. Also, I have never discussed what color my crap was on either of the social networks I use to communicate with my friends. I think the idea that only 16-year-olds with poor taste in music and colors use social networks is a gross overstatement. I use both Facebook and MySpace for the sole purpose of communicating with friends out of state easily as well as my in-town friends when coordinating events like birthday parties or a night out on the town.
I suppose I've also supported the article by essentially stating that these new veins are more efficient ways to communicate for some people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: old people and e-mail
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Huh?
But FB (which I use regularly at 25) also fills a nice little niche in that you can keep in touch with a lot of people in a convenient manner. It's simple, free and (if everyone you know is on there) pretty well all-inclusive.
Will it replace email, no. Will social networking sites be going anywhere soon, no (on the whole, individual sites will come and go).
It may not be for everyone, and for some it is used as crap communication, but I use it as a tool to keep in touch with family and friends and be able to organize events in a way that no other technology out there right now can do.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Huh?
For me (at 32), Facebook has proven an excellent way of keeping in touch with friends as well as locating old friends I lost touch with. I've only received one unsolicited friend request (from a guy with the same name so I assume it was a Dave Gorman style prank), and I find the site pretty clean and very unobtrusive. So, it's a great site and I don't run into the inane teen chatter as I don't go into the groups and other sections where they happen.
Compare that with MySpace, with its eyeball-scouring layouts and a truly vocal group of teenagers running the show. True, Facebook isn't a tool for business, but I doubt that business was the kind of thing the kids surveyed were thinking about when answering the questions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Email IS for old people
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Email IS for old people
It also has a much greater reach. Who doesn't have an email address or twelve?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Email IS for old people
Text messages and IMs are, quite frankly, annoying as hell. They are highly inefficient, as they tend to interrupt whatever you were doing, thereby draining all productivity. Email, on the other hand, you can check when you want, reply when it's convenient, and spend the rest of your time actually getting things done.
Personally, I have a very difficult time with IM. It's stressful. It completely takes away from the main joy of email - the fact that you can communicate, and also take your time, be sure that you're saying what you want to say, and reply when it's convenient, without pressure. There are a lot of comments in here that IM and text will replace email someday - this sounds like a nightmare world to me.
And that's not even counting the fact that at least half of the emails I receive and send involve getting files back and forth.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
the reason
Email is important to those who have jobs. Young people don't have jobs. They don't need to send files to each other, or confidential information, or anything like that.
There will never come a day when somebody says "did you get those financial estimates? I sent them as a bulletin on MySpace."
For business related and confidential matters, email will always be the preferred tool.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Interesting
Now as far as personal communications goes, MySpace and Facebook are a great tool. I can reconnect with old friends and make new ones. Also, if I want to update something about my life or add pictures, I just do it once and all my friend know about it and can figure out what's going on. Its quick and easier. I also text from my phone because I got a new one with a qwerty layout and just LOVE the thing. Also I have been using IM for ages, at least since I was in grade school.
So I think the assumption email is for old people is wrong. I would say, email is for businesses and these other tools are for personal use.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
#18
Amen!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
wait until they have jobs
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Email for Old People
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
e-mail and its complements
Otherwise, I think its immediacy is too distracting. Given the corporate need for record keeping and accountability, users are a bit better served by taking a minute or so to compose their response -- it may be viewed in much different circumstances later.
What the young-uns don't realize is that the bits they send into the ether may live for a long time. Don't say anything that you aren't prepared to stand by, either attached to your resume or displayed with your other family issues 20 years later. If you would find your behavior embarrassing when your kids bring it up 20 years later, don't document and publicize it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
E-mail and IM
IMO. There is a place for SMS and e-mail and other forms of commuication - they offer choice and flexibility. Although most of the States are still getting clued into SMS. But IM disappears. SMS and Social networking technologies replace it or relegate it to inside the corporate firewalls.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Texting will replace email, period.
Texting will replace email, period. It's faster and more portable and always will be because not everyone is going to carry around a laptop with them. Smartphones are great but there will never be an efficient way to write a lengthy email using a smartphone. Game set match.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It depends
I agree that SMS is replacing IM. Will it replace email? Not until dinosaurs like me die off. FB and MySpace -- great, if you're on them and checking it all the time. Not so great if you're stuck at work.
There's this work/not divide that has to be addressed: depending on the company, you are not expected to be on FB all day long. So, your FB time is going to be limited to after hours, or all day, if you're unemployed.
My biggest pet peeve: IM's from unemployed friends. "Can't you see I'm working?" Actually, I am guilty of that, sometimes, as well.
Lastly, the communications medium which is most comfortable to us is the one we use for our particular purpose. Don't need to know what's happening all the time 24/7? Email. Mission critical data? SMS/IM/Panic Button (you all do have panic buttons, right?) Planning a party -- FB and Myspace.
I would really like to see all of these converge and open up, so that I would simultaneously receive messages on my phone and IM, and a little tickler in my email. Again, pie-in-the-sky thinking. I guess I should be happy that email was created by geeks who opened the code, or we'd all owe our souls to AOL and CompuServe.
Oh, and email is not like sending a letter. It's like sending a postcard. If you want confidentiality, use VPN's or PGP. Otherwise "All your trade secret belong to us"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I read my emails when I get home from work. I ignore text messages, (which has the happy result of reducing them to almost nothing), I don't belong to FB or MS or anything similar, I don't use IM and I leave my phone in the car most of the time, especially at weekends.
I still manage to keep in contact with those I consider important and don't in the slightest feel like I'm missing anything.
I imagine I'm a dying breed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You're only considered "old"...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Here in Asia, txt messaging thrives, calling the Philippines as the text capital of the world [i don't know who said that, just read it].
Kids do feel that to be hip and cool is to try out all these latest gadgets. It is consuming them too much that some do inappropriate things with their mobile phones. Such is the response that there are many schools here in Southeast Asia banning mobile phones. Which I think is just right. I mean they can do their personal stuff after school or during break.
For us 'older' people, we don't mind for as long as we communicate, any means is alright. Perhaps e-mail was there before text messaging.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Long live Old people and their Email
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Taming the Email Monster
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Article mis-titled.
(Actually, killing a tree is probably even better; but we'll stick to electronic communiques.)
Your tweets, your facebook wall, your myspace page -- that's where you put messages if it's not important to you whether I read them or not. If you're hoping to convey an idea and effect change, then you'll bother to fire up an email client.
...And you'll use whole words, capitalize and punctuate the way MY teachers taught me!
Effective communication isn't about the author; it's about the audience. "Get with the program", indeed!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Kids are wrong
Also, how would you text someone a story with a few paragraphs?
Kids haven't developed so don't ask them, ask people who have passed puberty.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
email's dead
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Serious
Are you fucking kidding me with what you put on notice!!!!! You fucking DICK HEADS!!!! Screw you!! Moron!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]