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E-mail Is For Old People
Strolls writes "Although the article itself doesn't seem quite as exciting or newsworthy, this headline from Reuters amused me mightily. Reuters' summary is here and here's the original survey by Pew Internet and American Life Project." From the article: "Internet users from 12 to 17 years old say e-mail is best for talking to parents or institutions, but they are more likely to fire up IM when talking with each other, the nonprofit Pew Internet and American Life Project found. E-mail is still used by 90 percent of online teens. But the survey found greater enthusiasm for instant messaging."
IM is for conversation, email is for documentation.
IM is for communication in real-time, email is for communication any time.
IM is for communication with someone online, email is for communication with someone online or offline.
IM is for temporary messaging, email is for permanent messaging.
IM is for instant messaging, email is for persistent messaging.
As a group, teens have more time to sit and chat than adults, hence the preference for IMing friends. IM is just the electronic equivalent of hanging out at the mall.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Of course kids are going to love instant gratification through real-time instant messaging as opposed to email. Until they grow up and find themselves in business situations where they're going to need to coordinate meetings, share presentations/comments and work with peers/partners who live in different time zones there simply isn't a need for them to use email. Can you imagine logging in and finding your desktop covered with IM pop-ups from customers and colleagues? It's just not practical in the business arena to use IM as the only means of communication.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
In America, only old people use e-mail.
--Mike Boos
Here come the Korea jokes.
...AFTER they get a job. If I get less than 50 e-mails a day at work, it's a Christmas day miracle.
-Valiss
...or all over?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I for one hate IM due to the abbreviated "1337" speak used in it. I also hate having to search back through the Trillian logs looking for somthing someone said weeks ago.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Did you hear that 18 year olds? You're old people now. Grab a prune-juice and check your email.
Starsucks
E-mail Is For Old People
So those VIAGRA spammers knew about this long before this research.
Thanks, here's another bomb: talking enthusiastically preferred to writing letters for conversation among peers located within 10 feet of each other.
stuff |
im is synchronous
email is asynchronous
so they both have their pluses and minuses as a communicaiton medium, depending upon what you are doing
i think the kids are just restating the fatigue we are all feeling from the effects of email spam
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I suspect this is largely true, mostly because we "older" folks have more responsibilities that preclude us from hanging out and IMing each other.
I use IM at work to talk with other folks about the crisis du-jour. With a million things clamoring for my attention all day, it's nice to have an asynchronous medium like email for things that don't need a response *right this instant*.
Raise your hand if you remember when the command for Instant Messaging was 'write'.
In the office we use both IM and e-mail.
IM is used when we have a quick question, need to check and see if someone is in before we transfer a call, want to know who wants to get some Chineese for lunch, etc.
We e-mail our clients. We e-mail project status reports, team task lists, meeting agendas.
IM replaces what we would say on a phone. e-mail replaces what we would print on a printer.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
My parents have no clue how to Use IM, but they did get into email somewhat, so I see the point there. And teenagers who don't have a job, and who have friends that don't have jobs, have no need for email as all their friends are always going to be online, or at the very least have an away message up. However, in the business world no matter what age you are you're going to use email. And in the gaming world no matter what age you are you're going to use IM's. In short, while age is a factor, I think occupation of time is the biggest factor.
My name is a variety of floral rose, and no, it's not blue
In related news, I will never understand these people that insist on using IM over their phone! Fucking, just call the person! Ass.
My site
My films
90% still use email, but have "greater enthusiasm" for IM? Somehow I don't get the conclusion that email is for old people from that.
The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. -Elliot Carver
I'm 18 and I get about 2 emails a week but spend hours talking to people over AIM,IRC,MSN,MUCKs, etc. That's both good and bad, if someone's trying to keep a conversation going over email, I can take my time in replying and IMs have their downfall in that you pretty much have to reply instantenously. Feh.
The adults and older people should be happy that teens are using IM's. Because..:
They aren't calling long distance on the phone or using too many cell phones minutes to talk to their friends.
AND In many cases they aren't tying up a phone line (if they have broadband).
I say this because it's the adults who will most likely be paying the phone bills and/or not being able to use the phone if their teenager is on it all day.
(interesting side note is that emailer is old enough to be in the dictionary, but IMer is not. One is truly old when one's verbifications are standard.)
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Apples are better than oranges.
Story at 11.
IM is synchronous; e-mail is asynchronous. See the literature for corresponding behavior.
"it generally just feels childish and unprofessional"
I think you nailed why young people like it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The main reason that instant messaging (IM) is popular among young adults is that it provides the kind of instant gratification that e-mail cannot provide. IM gives you instant interaction with the other party: friend, girl friend, etc. E-mail responses are usually not instantaneous and depend on whether the recipient of the e-mail note has logged onto her computer and actually read the note.
Don't get me wrong, I was a shortsighted twit when I was a teenager, too. What an ass! But all this does is document that teenagers:
1) Think the whole world revolves around them,
2) that is does, or should do so right now,
3) that anyone who isn't talking to them right now is a loser,
4) and that MTV has further reduced their attention span to that of a gnat.
In other news: teenagers think belts, savings accounts, and employers are also for Old People.
"Timmy, write your grandmother a thank you note for paying your tuition this semester."
"I can't - she's not online. What an old loser!"
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I just imagined /. in real time (an open chat room):
/. it's always like: argh, we are the pirates, MS is the biatch! Leenux all the way!
-FriSt Pst, b147ch35!
(with heavy Russian accent): -Hot grits. Get your hot grits here.
-Oh, yes, Nataly Portman always reminds me of a good big bowl of nice steaming hot gritz.
-GOOGLE ROKZ. THIER ARE THE CLOOOEST! I AM A ROKCET SCENTEIST >LWE>F PFQ!FP !
-In soviet Russia, Rocket Scientists Google YOU.
-Oh, man, I remember this one time, in the band camp....
-Yes, Microsoft is the evil empire. They are releasing this new service, a total Google rip off too...
-Microsoft is just trying to play nice, and here on
-It's Mr. GNU/Linux to you, a55h47.
-Give man a fish and he ows you a fish. Hit him on the head with a fish and he just swims there in the fishery. For the dead fish.
-4ll y0ur b453 4r3...
-You, dumb ass, this 'all your base' crap is like 10 years old. Get with the program!
----------------------
Yup. I can see why teenagers like the IM more than email. You have to think before sending an email (well, at least a little more) because you don't have the easy way to instantly correct what you just said.
You can't handle the truth.
Communication users from 12 to 17 years old say postal mail is best for talking to parents or institutions, but they are more likely to dial up a phone when talking with each other, the nonprofit Pew Internet and American Life Project found. Postal mail is still used by 90 percent of teens. But the survey found greater enthusiasm for phone calling.
"E-mail is still used by 90 percent of online teens. But the survey found greater enthusiasm for instant messaging."
"Three-quarters of teen Internet users use instant messaging, compared with 42 percent of adults."
OK, 90% of teens use email and 75% of teens use IM. Yet teens have a "greater enthusiasm for instant messaging"? Sure, a greater enthusiasm than adults (75% to 42% according to this survey). Is that a surprise to anyone? But they are still more likely to be users of email. So what's the point of this?
IM is a huge pain in the butt.
/. just have an article about three minute distraction intervals and the loss of creativity?
IM is a distraction.
IM is a total waste of my time.
I used IM for a very brief period and got sick of everyone expecting an answer __right__ __now__. So I no longer use it. Ever.
Didn't
Bingo!
You want an answer from me, send email.
When I get around to it, I'll read it. And then after that, when I get around to it, I'll answer it.
EMAIL works. IM interrupts work.
(I know it's unsecure-- not too concerned about that, being the admin & all)
Jabber (in some forms) supports SSL and TLS encryption -- we're using a Jabber server in my department to facilitate communications, and I made damn sure it was encrypted, otherwise the admins with the sniffers would be shutting that server down if they saw what we were saying about them....
This is probably going to equate me with the Stone Age, but I find both email and IM rather impersonal. I would rather get up, and walk the 10 feet to talk to the person directly. I find breaking the isolation gets better results. *shrug* Why cut out 70% of my communication abilities (read: body language). If something goes south on a project I can reinforce behavior with my 6'7 frame. *grin*
If I ever wrote malware, it would strip the "reply all" button off of outlook. I love "reply all" the best for listserves though. Nothing like getting a bunch of "How do I subscribe to this list" messages in my inbox.
ICQ did that, and maybe still does. The problem is that if you have a person sending you occasional messages when you are off line, when you log in, you get a ton of messages.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I don't know why there's a big distinction between "email" and "IM". Every IM has the same sender/recipient info as email, even if it's not shown in the UI. And it's got its own routing info that's not SMTP, so those metadata aren't relevant - but in parallel. The IM UI really just automatically focuses the email UI and hides it. Then uses a different network protocol for transmission. Yes, the techs and RFCs are different. But there's no reason that IMs, if only stored, can't be directly transformed into "emails".
A good email database would store all these messages, as well as phone messages (including recordings of live, synchronous standard conversations), faxes, and every other "personal message", in a structure allowing a "metaformat". Depending on the MIME type of the message, it would associate with MIME-dependent variants of its address and transport. Even mismatches, like IM's missing "Subject:" data, could default to "IM: Alice to Bob 2005/7/28 13:48 EST" or the first line of the body. Then people could correspond across all these messaging techs, without getting trapped in the means to the end of interpersonal communication. The "universal inbox" could transcend all the media, and just bring people together, if it mapped these formats within a GUI that even old people could just use, without getting hung up on the technical limits.
--
make install -not war
The main reason instant messaging (IM) became popular with me is that my buddy Thad lives in Kansas City, while I live in San Francisco, yet we both happen to be sitting in front of computers all day. I later realized that it allows me to chat with my friend Dave, who works in an office in Redwood City, and we could both say the most horrible, offensive, profanity-laden things without alarming all the people in the cubes next to us.
That's it. No pop psychology or armchair media-studies theories required.
Breakfast served all day!
Back in my day, we didn't have these fancy IM thingees. We had smoke signals. In some bad winters, we ran out of dry wood to burn, so we burned dirt! There's nothing like sending a "I pwned you!" dirt smoke signal to somebody who's fire I just rooted.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I keep in touch with everyone I know through Anonymous Coward postings on Slashdot.
Beware of using IM at a company. Beware of using IM if you work for the government, or state. Beware of using IM at home.
Phew. Well, I guess that just leaves my private network of Apple IIe computers in my RV in the middle of the Nevada desert.
m00
MilkMiruku
IM is still relatively spam-free. Wait until it gets bogged down with spam.
Mouch of teens' communication is related to forming and strengthening social networks and finding their places in them. This requires a lot of rapid, short-term interaction. IM is a good match for this.
Adults (in general) have social networks that are well-established and don't require constant work. Their communication needs are more oriented to planning and coordination of longer-term projects, whether business, day-to-day "housekeeping", politics, skill-building, or any of a host of other things that are longer term and more asynchronous. Email is a good match for that.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I refuse to be interrupted by IM. If you need something, email me, or come over to my desk and talk to me. Both of those activities takes more effort than simple chat, and so weeds out the really frivolous things. (More often than not, by the time they email or talk to me, they've solved their own problem.)
Besides, I hardly ever mind talking to someone face to face, but that little blinking IM window icon makes me seethe. And when I'm seriously heads-down, people can actually see that and so tend to not bother me. (As I do for them when I walk over to their desk.)
BTW, this is accepted policy where I work and I'm far from alone in doing it. Most people here refuse to run an IM client and respond to desk encounters with "Can this be put into an email?" even before the question is asked.
An added benefit of this is that email can be printed, filed, saved, annotated, forwarded to a larger group, replied to later, etc. IM is limited as a lasting form of communication. IM is not as bad as voicemail (which is almost completely useless), but it's still a pretty ineffectual and disruptive form of communication.
After you get laid off for not helping out the team, don't come crying to me.
Being able to do your job in a timely fashion, sans interruption, will rarely result in a layoff. Useless wool-gathering IM sessions are another matter.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Today is the day I realized I was getting old.
He's dead right, although perhaps not in the way he intended.
IM is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist for quite a lot of people. Instant communication over the network is basically trying to replace:
-Getting up to go talk to the guy (in office environments)
-Calling him on the phone (how many people have cell phones again?)
So for a lot of people, myself included, IM is worthless. If I need instant communication, the phone is faster, simpler, and less hassle all around. Maybe if you lacked always-on connectivity and had to use dialup or something, then I could see the benefit.
But people talk much quicker than they type, on average. So if I need an instant answer, I call the guy instead. Simpler than using a 1 on 1 IM client.
Note that this doesn't apply to chat rooms or IRC or other multi-to-multi text messaging systems. That has some real benefit, solving a problem that doesn't have other good solutions. It's person to person IM that I'm talking about here.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
To act on an IM or phone call, you have to be there, and you have to respond immediately. That means if you're not at your computer or near your phone, you miss the missive. (Yes, there's phone mail, but that's the most annoying form of communication there is--you have to sit through someone's incoherent explanation of what they want in real time, you can't skim it like a long email.)
I use email almost exclusively as a communication tool, and prefer it over all others most of the time. Why? Well, it's the asynchronicity. I don't have to be there the moment it arrives to respond; Email sits there and waits patiently for me if I'm gone when it arrives. Email doesn't interrupt me--i'm free to ignore it if I want--but I can still reply to it later. I can also take my time composing an email message and say just what I want to say.
Sure, my daughter uses IM all the time for talking to her friends--again, IM is clearly a substitute for the telephone, not for email. I don't think IM is intrinsically evil, but some IM programs are certainly a security hazard (she's also already downloaded one very destructive virus from an IM) so I've toyed with the idea of blocking IM from my home network. Unfortunately, Microsoft's IM monster is a port-prober and can't be shut out at the router. That's criminal...but then criminality is nothing new for the Satan of Seattle.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Current incarnations of IM are, for the most part, more like "write" than "talk". Some are proprietary and some are not. There are many clients that speak multiple protocols, allowing one to reign in the insanity just a little bit and talk to one's friends regardless of their choice of client (within limits, of course). Typically they keep a conversation history, which allows you to keep some idea of what's going on, but isn't the level of interactivity you saw with "talk". More like a scroll-back buffer.
I wouldn't say anything about the functionality of most of the IM clients is revolutionary in any meaningful sense. Some allow you to send pictures and whatnot, giving them a certain IRC-ness. Some allow you to spawn other networked programs (e.g. games) and automatically pass your friend's IP. Of course, since everyone lives behind a firewall these days, that's pretty much useless. I've seen one at least that includes a shared white-board for multiple users, which is pretty cool. Needless to say, that's not one that's in common use, though. So, in summary, what makes these IMs "better" than write or talk were? Sexy GUI interface.
Or you could, you know... Study together. There's this cool new messaging protocol called a PIECE OF PAPER, you should check it out. It even allows both of you to write down your calculus equations and you can SEE them, in real time!
hehe... not too bad of an idea... do me a favor... come down here.. and explain to the belgian governemnt that being 17 years old it is a necessity to be able to drive a car... or tell them to expand the public transportation to a point where i can go study with my friend who lives across town without having to spent an hour each way on public transportation... cuz without either of those 2 being done... chance of us getting together and studying are limited to school hours... which we take full advantage of....
I may be wrong but you're downright ugly!