In The US, Email Is Only For Old People

lxw56 writes "Two years after Slashdot discussed the theory that Korean young people were rejecting email, an article at the Slate site written by Chad Lorenz comes to the same conclusion about the United States. 'Those of us older than 25 can't imagine a life without e-mail. For the Facebook generation, it's hard to imagine a life of only e-mail, much less a life before it. I can still remember the proud moment in 1996 when I sent my first e-mail from the college computer lab. It felt like sending a postcard from the future. I was getting a glimpse of how the Internet would change everything--nothing could be faster and easier than e-mail.'"

Comments

Re:Just the beginning

[Eivind]

I think it's perfectly OK for the boss to call me on my cellphone. IF it really is very important. My boss agreed. So, we agreed upon it this way:

He has my number. He can call me whenever he wants. When he does, he pays for a minimum of 3 hours, at overtime rates, even if it's something as simple as for me to answer a question. The rationale ? If it isn't worth 3 hours of overtime pay to him, then it obviously isn't -important-, in that case he should just wait until I arrive at work and discuss it with me then.

Works fine. I guess your mileage will depend on your boss. Some bosses will surely be the opinion that just because they get to disturb you, shouldn't mean they need to actually -compensate- you for it. (and no: 15 minutes of extra pay is -NOT- adequate compensation for having -private- time invaded by work, even if the intrusion lasts only 15 minutes)

Re:social networks...

[cshotton]

I think this comparison is fallacious. The difference between some younger than 25 using a more instant form of communication and those older than 25 using something more "archaic" like e-mail likely has more to do with the nature of their communications required by their current role in society and the workplace than anything to do with the fact that one mode is better than the other. When the kiddies grow up and understand that having a persistent, searchable, ubiquitous, reliable repository of communications with their peers, co-workers, and family is actually valuable, I think we'll see them shift their communications tool of preference. There is so much you cannot do with an IM style message in a corporate environment -- send attachments, search the past 5 years of messages, access the same message base from dozens of different device types and locations, etc. -- that e-mail will never be outpaced as a business communication tool by the current crop of IM tools and social networks.

And as a social tool, IMs match the attention span of the users. Sure, it's fun to play with Twitter and I have daily dialogs via SMS. But I am not going to write a note to a family member about a significant issue using AIM, nor am I going to discuss terms of a legal deal, send a 500 source file archive, or use SMS to read a 50 thread mailing list.

I think a more interesting study would be to follow a sub-25 year old Internet user for 10 years and see how their communications tool usage changes. That has some intrinsic value. This "study" has none. It's like saying lots of little kids play with Legos while only a handful of adults do, so therefore Legos are the wave of the future.

Re:personal experience says no freaking way

[Mr. Slippery]

Multiple-mind dumps that dart and flash like hungry steelhead in clear, fast moving coldddddduh water.

Please. Incessant IMing and SMSing by younger folks is just the contemporary equivalent of teens trying up the phone line with content-free communication. As Leary and Wilson put it, "Most human communication is embarrassingly primitive, consisting of endless variations on `I'm still here. Are you still there?' (hive solidarity) and `Nothing has really changed' (hive business as usual)." The young need more of this reassurance as they try to figure out their status in the pack; us older folks have settled in.

(Though thanks to hands-free headsets unlimited talk time, I note plenty of older people who can't STFU and pay attention to the world around them. I swear one day I'm going to smack someone who keeps jabbering on the phone as they go through the supermarket checkout line and never acknowledges the cashier with so much as a hello.)

IM is slightly more useful than e-mail in a handful of cases, but most of what passes over it is just hive buzz. As for SMS, it's great that it's displacing annoying cell-phone use -at least it's quieter - but let's not romanticize it.