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Kids Say Email is Dead
An anonymous reader writes "'E-mail is, like, soooo dead' is the headline at News.com, where a piece looks at youth attitudes towards communication mediums. A group of teenage internet business entrepreneurs confessed that they really only use email to 'talk to adults'. Primarily, these folks are using social networks to communicate. 'More and more, social networks are playing a bigger role on the cell phone. In the last six to nine months, teens in the United States have taken to text messaging in numbers that rival usage in Europe and Asia. According to market research firm JupiterResearch, 80 percent of teens with cell phones regularly use text messaging. Catherine Cook, the 17-year-old founder and president of MyYearbook.com, was the lone teen entrepreneur who said she still uses e-mail regularly to keep up with camp friends or business relationships. Still, that usage pales in comparison to her habit of text messaging. She said she sends a thousand text messages a month.'"
This only says what youth does, not what they'll use as adults. I'm guessing for more durable and more effective communications the youth of today will opt for something more substantial than "c u 2nit".
Youth today do what they do because it's there, not because it's going to replace traditional communications.
When "we" were young, we passed notes on pieces of paper. The girls passed messages by lip-reading (never understood how they were so good at that). I never saw any articles predicting "note passing", and lip-reading becoming the protocol de jour. If we'd had text messaging, we'd have done it too.
Consider from the article:
That seems to contradict the main thesis of the article. Basically, for important things like business and/or sponsors Martina uses e-mail? The e-mail is not dead, or as the article claims like, soooo dead.Text messaging, social web sites serve a purpose, not replace one. (This is akin the predictions recently "laptops to replace desktops".)
Critical thought, thorough discussion, deep understanding -- none are much served by the text messaging medium. (e-mail doesn't do much for them either.)
They "only use e-mail to 'talk to adults'". They'll use e-mail and more traditional forms of communication when they become adults. It doesn't mean they'll stop using the text messaging and other forms, it just means they'll need the more traditional forms.
i cld b wrng. i hope im not.
When all these kids get in the real world and have more important things to do than pay constant/immediate attention to the cell phone's IM's it won't be so "cool" and useful. An intelligent communication can be handled a lot better through an E-mail (or phone call or in person) than IM'ing.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I don't know about you guys but when ten years ago when I was fourteen, e-mail was dead too. Initially, I used to use Web based IM clients to talk to my friends quickly followed by ICQ and and even later MSN.
I only started using e-mail when my group of friends started working full time. I think the reason for this is that e-mail is mostly open at work because it's required for the business. Moreover, employers don't really care if you e-mail your friends from your account, provided you're not taking the piss. In contrast, browsing social networking sites from work can get you sacked.
In short, there's nothing new here. I think the youngsters of today will follow the same path as I did ten years ago; they will adopt e-mail when their circle of friends grow-up and go to work.
Simon
So people are using _different clients_ to send their ascii messages.
whatever...
Teenage Social Agenda != Professional Business Applications
/* No Comment */
Yes youth use text messaging... But there is another reason... A more realistic reason... COST...
Talking on the phone is expensive. Sending messages is cheap. Do you REALLY think that kids prefer sending messages to talking? "Why when I was young" kids were talking hours and hours on the phone. WHY? Because local calls were FREE... If kids had the option to talking or sending messages via a keyboard, they would have talked, not text messaged...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
radio (not dead)
television (not dead)
the newspaper (not dead)
the cinema house (very not dead)
etc.
no form of mass communication ever dies, it just moves out of the limelight. and then it's called "dead" by people wishing to make a melodrama out of the evolution of media
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
... I see this all the time. My take on it: younger people are in a hurry for response. They want immediate replies. But adults (as will these teens eventually) live in a different world, where the speed of response is part of the value but the message itself is important, too. I have to train my students to understand that leaving an email message for me will always result in a response, even if it is a little later, while IM may not.
From another perspective, MySpace and Facebook have messaging features which are simply email in a different form (posting to the web site). I am still at a loss to understand why posting a message on a web site (with the exception of group communication) is more beneficial than sending an email.
Think in full sentences?
Well, there's your problem, right there.
This is a cognitive issue. Kids can't/won't string together solid thoughts, aren't entertained by people that do, and aren't rewarded for trying to do so themselves. Of course they can't imagine doing boring, old-people stuff like learning to use tools that are built around a more verbose (and demanding, and useful) form of communication. GOML!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Primarily, it's because they want to talk when they're at work, in school, or on the go, but the vast majority of them can't afford a Blackberry.
... until they have to send their first resumé and cover letter :)
:)
On a more serious note, I have just been sucked into the wonderful/scary world of Facebook, and I must say, wow. I knew people liked to reinvent the wheel all the time, but what's with this new thing of "writing" on each other's "wall" instead of just sending emails? What was wrong with emails in the first place? I mean, I can see the attraction of writing fun things on these "walls", but many go much beyond that and use it to organize meetings, leave their phone numbers, addresses, and whereabouts for the next 3 weeks, for the recipient, but also everyone else to see.
So either this generation does not realize what it's doing (basically posting their contact details while broadcasting their private lives on teh internets), or it doesn't care at all about that thing called privacy.
I haven't even reached 30, and I already feel like I'm getting old
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
Once the grow up they will realize that not everything needs to be instantaneous short bursts of emoticons, and you really do want to send people actual coherent thoughts ( ie, "letters" ) at times.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I found email to be a liberating innovation as it allowed full asynchronous communication without anyone feelings getting hurt. You send me an email, and when I get a chance, I send you an email. It is a cheap efficient method of communication. Phones and voicemail is nearly as effecient, but people do tend to get their feeling hurt when one never answers a phone.
And all this innovation is ruined by IM. One is forced back into the world of synchronous communication, and really no more effecient than a telephone. I mean we might as well be back to the days of the telegraph as inefficient as IM is. Back in the mid 19th century we effectively had this IM technology, and a good operator could do perhaps 30 words a minute. On wonders why replaced such a perfect system with telephones. Insanity.
In my experience IM has one advantage over email or voice. It can be done without disturbing other people on relatively compact kit. A corollary of this, which I think may be more important to it's popularity, is it can be done covertly. So instead of learning in school, or earning you pay at work, or generally interacting with those around you, one can text. I certainly do not blame IM, as poeple who want to waste time will always find a way to do it, and people who are always looking for that better person will always do that as well, However, it is a new vector, and people use it mostly because is new. Much like the phone, most people will outgrow the novelty, and stop spending every waking minute using it. Sometimes this growth occurs at 20, sometimes 30, and sometime never.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
On the contrary, that is how a lot of high stakes business is done, on the golf course, at fancy restaurants, hotel suites,etc, the "good ole boy" network. And for formal ones, ponder the influence of just one fraternity, skull and bones, or say scroll and key. Those are social networks.
You just don't like kids and want a way to feel superior.
Nope, I am not a kid, most likely way older than you are, but I have always known about "social networks", because they work. People who start earlier with them build contacts that last a lifetime. Sure, it may be goofy in the beginning, but RTFA, these are teenagers already getting into business, and the only place they use email for the most part is talking to older folks, but their peer group is using IM, and that peer group will be the mainstream "business" community in a very short time frame. Time marches on friend, things change, but social networking is the best way to get ahead short of being born a billionaire.
What is the internet? A network of networks? The more presence you have networking-in all the forms-the better off you can be in business, it's all about timing and contacts. When I first started out working, the internet didn't exist, not at all. We didn't even do a lot of telephone shopping, it was dead trees catalogs and snail mail. Since when is even "email" mainstream? Oh, it happened in a fast time frame? Why yes it did. IM, or what IM evolves into, will be the same.
Don't become an old fogey before your time, it will make you chronically bitter.
Now, you can get off my lawn before I turn the sprinklers on....
Oh and old people are any better? If anything kids are more intensly curious than adults. And adults are far more closed minded and unable to think rationally when it conflicts with their biases.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Heck, I still use the paper post system all the time, because electronic mail is useless for physical delivery of packages. Of course.
Text messaging is for people who want real-time, but for whom clarity and deliberate content are not important. I must be old, because I find communications done in IM seem to have a rather light-weight ADD quality about them. --Which is probably appropriate for kids these days. --Keeping in mind, that the kids using computer communications are regular kids who are worried about clothes and popularity contests and who's dating who, etc. Light fluffy stuff. Email was developed by geeks for geeks, and because of its usefulness, was adopted by business, and I expect will remain in use that way for some time to come. (Try keeping 50 clients sorted in real-time!) Maybe when the ADD kids raised and trained in information sorting of that magnitude reach the business world, they will create a different type of work place and style of business management, but I don't see how they'll manage without something as stable as email. Attention to detail, record keeping and being able to take an hour or a few days to think about all the ramifications of a question before responding become important when you enter the business world.
(Although, given some of the communications I've done a back and forth on with various businesses might sometimes suggest otherwise.)
I see IM and today's social networks as having potential for something very useful in the future, but right now they still seem to be in a rather proto-gimik-time-wasting stage of development. When the business world finally adopts them, it will mean that their value has been proven, at which point the next New Hip Thing will be popular with the kids, and only old farts will spend time on Facebook. If we survive long enough as a culture, that is. . .
-FL
Different technologies have different uses. IM, text messaging, e-mail, etc have not killed phone calls. Why? Phone calls allow for you to hear someone's voice, which is useful and/or nice in a number of different situations. Likewise IM will not kill e-mail. IM is nice, and I have an IM client running pretty much all the time but it's more for contacting friends with quick tech questions, or BSing while I was for a slow lab install to finish. It would work for support, because IM expects a realtime response which I can't always give. E-mail works much better hence why we use it. Likewise, my parents, friends, etc often will e-mail me when I'm at work because they have something to say or want information, but realise that I may be busy and not able to immediately respond.
As for communicating on social network sites, this is just people playing around. E-mail has the same function, but is universally compatible. We are not going to go around telling everyone at work they have to sign up for myspace. Sure it may be fun to use when you are talking to friends who also have accounts, but it does not replace the universal access of e-mail.
You have to remember that they aren't talking about any new technology here. IM/text messaging have been around for a long time, and social network sites are doing nothing other than sending e-mails in a closed system.
For a technology to kill off another technology it more or less has to either be a better version or really change the way we live to the point we don't need the old technology. None of this is a better e-mail, hence e-mail is fine.
especially when there's no additional benefits.
What you're missing is that social network messaging solves THE problem that email has. You know who sent you the message. And barrier to spam is higher than with email.
Lots of other email-like functionality is missing, but the authentication issue (sender and receiver have authenticated themselves to a third party) has been fixed.
paintball
I shudder along with you, but I'd say if their job requires writing something, ask for a resume, and maybe have them write a letter about why they want to work at your company, what their goals are, etc.
In other words, have their first contact with you be via email. Bonus: You can probably write a script to reject the ones who can't spell "you" before it hits your inbox, though I wouldn't recommend it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If teenagers want to live in the real world and communicate with other people, they'll stop changing their phone number and e-mail address every 15 mins. I personally don't have time for that shit -- if I send you mail and it bounces, it bounces. Not my problem.
I was a teenager rather recently and even I knew this shit.