Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Future of Email is Bleak

I am battling to not fall into a generation communication/media gap. I have noticed for some time now that email use is declining, especially amongst teenagers. I honestly wanted to write this off as one of the follys of youth- "they can play around with their social network messaging now, but once they grow up and enter the real world, they will have to adjust to email". It was a comforting thought to help me through the annoyance of logging into multiple social networking sites to check messages. I can not fathom my future spent in such an annoying way ( and I do still believe that the way that social networks interact will have to change for them to survive) .

Having my parents here over the past weekend and spending more than one discussion/argument over the shift from paper communication to digital/email has really made me accept that the shift to social network messaging is not just a folly of youth, but the next evolutionary shift in digital communications. It does not mean that email is dead. The generations of people and businesses heavily invested in email are not going to disappear overnight. But the change is coming and if you have a business or an interest in being able to continue to communicate to the next generation of adults, you had better be prepared. Just as my generation sends paper communications less and less, my childrens' generation uses email less and less. This does not mean that I think that social network messaging is better than email, just that the current shift is rapidly moving away from it. For my part, it means that I am going to stop haranguing my children to check their email and trying to convince them that email is important to their future.

How do you communicate with the teenagers in your life? How is your business adapting to accomodate the shift in communication?

2 comments:

  1. My problem with social networks is keeping up with them. Seems like Myspace is now old and busted while Facebook is the new hotness. Do I have to start all over when the next new thing comes along every couple of years?

    Also, keeping up on a day to day basis sucks... too many things go by, especially with quizzes and other annoying fluff in between. How will I see things directed solely to me from a friend? What if I miss it?

    Email is better since it is mine. I hope you're wrong about it being on its way to extinction.

    ReplyDelete
  2. For me, Twitter has become the communication tool I use. It works very well to stay in touch with the writers and artists working for us. I also notice that an actual phone call works better now as well.

    Facebook is another tool as well.

    For me, I follow where my customers, fans and contractors go.

    ReplyDelete