July 23, 2007
Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead
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. News.com reports.
According to teenagers, e-mail is for business dealings.
"If I'm talking to any friends it's through a social network," said Asheem Badshah, a teenaged president of Scriptovia.com, an essay-sharing site that launched this summer. "For me even IM died, and was replaced by text messaging. Facebook will replace e-mail for communicating with certain people."
Related:
-- E-mail is last millennium, SMS is now. - Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder — a parent, teacher or a boss — or to receive an attached file.
-- Teens turn away from e-mail - favor MySpace, IM and SMS - Statistics show that, for the first time, teen e-mail use is dropping in the -- apparently in favor of more "instant'' alternatives.
The decline of e-mail was reported in South Korea as early as 2004:
-- New Forms of Online Communication Spell End of Email Era in Korea - The perception that "email is an old and formal communication means" is rapidly spreading among them. "I use email when I send messages to elders," said a college student by the name of Park. For 22-year-old office worker Kim, "I use email only for receiving cellphone and credit card invoices."
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