At the risk of revealing my age, I was one of those people who was awed when I saw my first email and how it works. I remember thinking how immediate emails are when compared to the traditional snail mail – where you write a letter, put it in an envelope with the address of the recipient, put stamps on the envelope and then mail it. Depending on how fast every step of the mailing process is and how far the mail will have to travel, the recipient would most likely have to wait from between one to two days for local mail and a week at least for international post.I thought email was such a cool invention because it allowed you to send a message that would be received by the recipient when they check their own email. It was such revolutionary development, in my view.
But cut to the present, and I was surprised to read a survey done by Parks Associates wherein it showed that teenagers are a lot less likely to use email as a communication tool.
Based on the study only a fifth of teens between 13 and 17 years of age admitted to using email to communicate with friends. Instead, most teens prefer to use other communication systems like text messaging, with fully a third of the surveyed teeners relying on text.
Surprisingly, teeners cite the fact that emails are “slow” and a device for adults and old people. The immediacy of text messaging is what is attracting teens. They love the fact that after sending a message they would most likely get a reply in just a few seconds.
But experts say that teens will eventually have to learn to send email especially since it is still the dominant form of communication in the business sector.
For a guy who saw the boom of emailing during the late 90’s, I am surprised by these pronouncements from teens. Who would have thought that a technology that we found amazing and life changing will be seen by children as old fashioned!
[tags]email, text messaging, business sector, technology, snail mail[/tags]