The death of email?
According to an article in Slate, the young are ignoring email for other forms of communication like social networks and instant messaging. According to the article:
Ten years later, e-mail is looking obsolete. According to a 2005 Pew study, almost half of Web-using teenagers prefer to chat with friends via instant messaging rather than e-mail. Last year, comScore reported that teen e-mail use was down 8 percent, compared with a 6 percent increase in e-mailing for users of all ages. As mobile phones and sites like Twitter and Facebook have become more popular, those old Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts increasingly lie dormant.
The article goes on to say:
Thinking more practically, there’s now a generation gap between first-generation and second-generation Internet users. Colleges are finding that students increasingly ignore or never receive campus-wide e-mail announcements. All those clever forwards from Grandpa are going unread.
Is this just a teenage fad? Not according to the author of the article who says:
So, is the solution to browbeat these little rebels back in line and enforce mandatory e-mail usage? Good luck. Chances are, as usual, that the grown-ups will be the ones who are forced to adapt. Colleges have already thrown up their hands and created Facebook and MySpace pages to stay in touch with students. Since Facebook opened its gates to oldsters this year, parents are coming in and setting up camp a safe viewing distance from their kids.
So, will you be joining Facebook?
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