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In Korea, Email Is Only For Old People
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:19 AM
from the u.s.-has-officially-been-lapped dept.
from the u.s.-has-officially-been-lapped dept.
_martini_ writes "This short article suggests that, in Korea, email is used only for formal communications, or by older, less tech-saavy generations, while IMs, blogs, and SMS has taken over as the primary means of day to day messages."
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In The US, Email Is Only For Old People 380 comments
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.'"
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In Korea, Email Is Only For Old People
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Greasy Kids Stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday November 29 2004, @11:43PM)
Re:Greasy Kids Stuff (Score:5, Funny)
Oh shit! Wrong tab!
There's also lots of stuff it's not good for (Score:5, Insightful)
IM would be totally unsuited for this. When peopel have your attention in realtime, they want results in realtime. If I answer a chat about a Solaris problem, I'm not the one you want, you want the Solaris admin. With e-mail, this is all taken care of. Someone submits their request, and when the Solaris admin is available, he deals with it.
I certianly don't think IM is useless, but I think young people (I include myself in this category, I'm 24) are a little too caught up with the wow factor. When it comes to bussiness, there are major reasons to want to use e-mail instead.
Re:There's also lots of stuff it's not good for (Score:4, Interesting)
If you submit a request to have a handholding session for how to use Power Point 5 minutes before someone else submits a request to fix their desktop that won't boot, you aren't getting processed first. The most important work gets done first. Someone having no access is more important than some training.
There is alos policy as to order of requests. Critical systems are first, then professors, then staff, etc (university here). This is departmental policy, not somehting we control. So if a student asks for something, and a professor asks for something, the professor gets help first.
Then there is skill. Not all the tech staff are skilled at the same thing. If you send in an advanced Solaris problem, I am not going to attempt to solve it simply because I am the one who saw it first. I'll hand it off ot the Solaris admin, who is likely to fix it right, and fix it efficiently.
Finaly there is time. If your job is something like installing 10 systems with an OS and apps, and another job comes in that is the quick update of a single app, the quick job gets processed first. Your job is a long endevor anyhow, there isn't any reason to make 5 minute work wait a day on it.
Logging is important in all this, which e-mail is good for. If you sumbit a request for 10 systems for install, we need to have a record of what you wanted on them. It's not going to happen in 10 seconds, there needs to be a reference for what was needed.
It's also important since, as I noted, the first person to read the ticket isn't necessiarly the one who does the job. You don't want second-hand miscommunication of information, you want an accurate record of what was requested.
Of course I think the main problem here is you have a self-superior incorrect picture of what a helpdesk is. This is not a reference to a group of people that sit behind desks and do nothing but take calls. This means the entire technical department, the manager, all the admins, and so on.
There is no gaurentee that any of us are at our desks at any time. If someone needs support on their desktop and I am the one who is best to provide it, I must go and support them. If an issue then comes in that I am uniquely qualified or at least the most qualified to deal with, it needs to wait until I get back.
Perhaps it's different where you work, but where we are, e-mail is essential. E-mailing a ticket to help is a great way to ensure your job is done fast and correct. Stopping the tech manager in the hall is a great way to ensure he adds it to his already overloaded plate and it may never get done.
Getting a person in realtime may provide more instant satisfaction, but it doesn't necessiarly get what you want done. Also, we have a phone line (and office to visit) for such requests, but that doesn't lessen the usefullness of e-mail.
Re:Greasy Kids Stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
replacement for soviet joke? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday August 29 2002, @02:04PM)
Re:replacement for soviet joke? (Score:4, Funny)
(Last Journal: Saturday February 05 2005, @11:11PM)
In Korea, (current subject) is for the elderly!
Re:replacement for soviet joke? (Score:5, Funny)
In Korea, only old people (verb).
for example:
in Korea, only old people say the phrasing needs work.
Re:replacement for soviet joke? (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday January 26 2005, @05:18AM)
damn this one is catchy.
Re:replacement for soviet joke? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Re:replacement for soviet joke? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:replacement for soviet joke? (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 04 2003, @08:22PM)
Re:An yet... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://cumulo-nimbus.com/)
But... (Score:5, Funny)
On slashdot... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though, no credit? Come on!
How about the Legal Community? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://votenewt.net/)
Re:How about the Legal Community? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.workbench-music.com/)
DEAR AOL KOREA USAR
IT HAS COMA 2 MAH ATENTION TAHT U HAEV MAED AN UNAUTHORIEZD USE OF MAH COPYRIGHTED WORK IN DA PR3PARATION OF A WORK D3RIEVD THEIR!N WTF LOL I HAEV RESERVAD AL RIGHTS IN TEH WORK FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2003 [AND HAEV REGIST3R3D COPYRIGHT THEIR!N OMG LOL UR WORK IS ASENTIALY IEDNTICAL 2 TEH WORK AND CLEARLY USAD DA WORK AS ITS BASIS.
AS U N3ITHER ASK3D FOR NOR R3CEIEVD P3RMISION 2 USE TEH WORK AS DA BASIS FOR UR WORK NOR 2 MAEK OR DISTRIBUTE COPEIS INCLUDNG ALECTRONIC COPEIS OF SME I BLEIVE U HAEV WILFULY INFRNGED MAH RIGHTS UND3R 17 USC!!!!11 OMG WTF LOL S3CTION 101 ET SEQ!1!!111! WTF AND CUD B LIABL3 FOR STATU2RY DMAEGS AS HIGH AS $15000 AS SAT FORTH IN S3CTION 504(C)(2) THEIR!N OMG WTF
I DAMAND TAHT U IM3DIAETLY CEAES DA US3 AND DISTRIBUTION OF AL INFRNGNG WORKS D3RIEVD FROM TEH WORK AND AL COPEIS INCLUDNG ELECTRONIC COPEIS OF SME TAHT U DELIEVR 2 ME IF APLICABLA AL UNUSED UNDISTRIBUTED COPEIS OF SM3 OR DESTROY SUCH COPEIS IMADIAETLY AND TAHT U DESIST FROM THIS OR ANY OTHAR INFRNGEMANT OF MAH RIGHTS IN DA FUTURA1!!1 OMG LOL IF I DO NOT RECEIEV AN AFIRMATIEV R3SPONS3 FROM U INDICATNG TAHT U HAEV FULY COMPLEID WIT THAS3 R3QUIERM3NTS I SHAL TAEK FURTHER ACTION AGANEST U!!!!1!!1 WTF
URS TRULY, SEBADUDE
It might be a bit of a challenge to decipher for most of us, but for these highly trained legal experts I'm sure it's nothing.
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.henrygaboyan.com/)
if... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.solidz.com/)
Re:if... (Score:5, Funny)
What's that, Gramps?
KFG
Re:if... (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed. But don't discount the undead. Lawyers do everything by snail mail.
Credibility of E-mail? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.barkinbarnyardkennels.com/)
How do IMs, blogs or SMS provide any more credibility than E-Mail?
Heh heh (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.celsius1414.com/)
Of course, there is the corollary: IM, blogs, and SMS are kiddy tech.
Have to be careful about reading this stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
It'd be like a Hollywood tabloid saying that indipendent film is on the way out.
The ebb of email is confirmed by a diminishing trend in pageviews, a tabulation of frequency in service used by email users. Daum Communication, the top email business in the country, saw its email service pageviews fall over 20 percent from 3.9 billion in October last year to 3 billion in October this year. By contrast, with SK Telecom, the nation's No. 1 communication firm, monthly SMS transmissions skyrocketed over 40 percent in October from 2.7 billion instances last October. Cyworld, a representative mini-homepage firm, witnessed its pageviews multiply over 26-fold from 650 million instances in October last year to 17 billion in October this year.
This paragraph, for instance, is as much about corporate branding as it is about giving email stats.
korean spam killing korean smtp traffic (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.fuckedregime.com/)
Re:korean spam killing korean smtp traffic (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.noooxml.org/petition)
In fact, first thing I do on a new account, I block
I am against blocking entire country domains in fact, I generally report spam through Spamcop (taking my time) and review report while sending.
The problem? They do NOTHING!
http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=inprogress
Look at top spam senders, it will explain everything.
Oh btw if there are Korean-Americans out there as moderators, spare your time teaching postmasters of your native country at least how to enable smtp-auth instead of marking parent post troll.
Or, if you can give me my your mail address, I can auto forward 100 spam/week, ONLY coming from hananet etc to your mail address.
Here too (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://contestsinfo.blogspot.com/)
And as far as blogs, teens like talking about themselves, so this gives them a place to write about themselves as much as they want. Then anyone who knows how to get to it can read it, so its spread to the masses.
And SMS. Many teens have cellphones, and aren't at their computer 24/7, so an easy way to communicate is to a device that they carry with them all the time.
Korean e-mail usage spammed to death? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.interlingua.com/)
Meaningless Criticism... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know people who set up their AIM client so that you can't tell whether they're idle, and only respond to messages 10 hours after you've sent them, and i know people who watch their inboxes like obsessive hawks.
as for email being less "fun" than aim... I don't know, i think my gmail account is pretty cool... and conversational for that matter.
This debate is pretty silly, after all, all we're talking about is persistant electronic messaging. In terms of user experience, email and a client like ICQ aren't -drastically- different. Presumably email will get faster and friendlier, and hell, at some point probably may as well be the same as an IM system.
Wow, email lacks credibility... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.demaagd.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday October 27 2002, @06:53PM)
The one thing I like about email is that I can get to it when I need to. IM basically requires both parties to be at a computer and logged in at the same time. SMS solves that, I guess, but is it as reliable as email yet?
I'd try SMS if it weren't so much more expensive than email and if I weren't charged to recieve messages I didn't want. I suppose SMS in Korea is a lot cheaper.
It's a shame, really... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's a shame, really... (Score:5, Funny)
wut r u leik 90!!???!!1111 evry1 i knoe noes wut I say. ^-^; oh shit, moms coming. g2g kay thx bai
Re:It's a shame, really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your post was probably intended to be humorous, but the point is valid.
As we move from traditional letters to email and finally to instant messaging, it appears that we are taking less time and care in the composition of the messages.
A carefully written message is more effective at transmitting an idea than a hastily written message. Proper spelling and grammar results in easier reading and a better impression of the author and the value of the message.
I used to work for someone who would always use cute AOLisms in messages (e.i. "b4", "u", etc). While face-to-face conversations gave most people the impression that he was an intelligent guy, online he appeared to be a lot more ignorant, due to how he wrote.
As I spend more and more time online writing quick messages, I find that my writing skills are slowly degrading. Hopefully, ten years down the road, the quality of my writing won't have suffered too much. But even now, writing this post, I see sentences that could be phrased better, words that should be replaced, etc.
Maybe not just Korea (Score:5, Insightful)
If shown Instant Messaging they wouldn't use it as nifty as they think it might be, because it's a paradigm they don't neccesarily buy into.
I would imagine this would apply to many older people. Hell, I even enjoy the eloquence of well written letter.
--J
Hell no (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ironwolve.com/ | Last Journal: Friday July 09 2004, @12:59AM)
Email works, hell, I'd rather have an IM2mail gateway so I can use a mail client. Mail is passive and you control it, IM wants to control your life. (No this isnt a in Russia joke.)
I can also sort mail, pop web mail, attachments, etc. Mail is much more powerful. And newer IM devices include email accounts (POP or Ldap) Even ATT Wireless (Er Cingular now) the Ogo.
How about...both? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday December 03 2006, @11:20PM)
Each serves their purpose. If I need to speak to someone interactively and immediately, IM is generally a better choice. On the other hand, if I want to send a good bit of information to someone that they're likely going to want to refer back to, or they're not online when I think of something I need to tell them, email is a much better alternative.
I quite like the way gmail is set up, and that is certainly done well to support a "conversational" format. I don't see why this persistent need in the tech community that one tool is always and for everything better than another. It seems pretty frequent though (Windows vs. Linux vs. *BSD vs. Solaris, email vs. IM, blogs vs. newsgroups, I could go on but I'd fill up the server.)
Why doesn't anyone acknowledge that, quite like in reality, software is a tool, and one type of tool is generally better at a given job then another? You don't use a hammer to loosen a nut, nor a wrench to drive a nail, and you wouldn't want to be stuck without either when the need arises.
Should always specify North or South. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Should always specify North or South. (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://puzzling.org/)
Well, duh... (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday May 30 2005, @01:21PM)
Spam typically COMES from Korea. It would make sense then, that Koreans generally do not use email (which, in most Korean's minds is for SPAM only) as a communication means.
telephone is for OLD people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Email is a medium best suited to explaining large topics where you need to compose and edit a message. That does tend to be more formal communication. Really it's an inherently different way to communicate because you get to compose a message rather than have a conversation. IM is realtime conversation, whereas email is a form of writing.
I've had chat capability almost as long as email, probbably started somewhere around 1991. I actually do tend to use email to talk to people that are less tech savy, and IRC or IM to those that are more tech savy, so it's not just a Korean thing. The core reason for the tech-gap is because email caught on much quicker than chat because email doesn't require a constant on connection. With people having broadband connections that're always on more and more it's obvious why IM is becoming a more and more popular a form of communication. Most communication people do is the short "can you do blah" rather than "here's a long winded explanation of blah".
I'm not old, just anti-social (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
If you need to get a hold of me, email is the fastest way. I check them every hour or so. I check the VM only 1-2 times a day. If only I could turn off the phone at work as well.
Avoiding work interruptions (Score:4, Insightful)
An instant conversation is nice to have, but if you have ongoing conversations throughout the day you simply can not focus on your computer work!
People often think they are smarter than they actually are. I am willing to acknowledge that I don't have the mental capacity to seriously work on more than one thing at a time. I prefer the operation of email, since communications get queued up and will be answered at my convenience. Not only are they queued up (Jabber, ICQ does that too of course) but this is the expected mode of operation, so there is no etiquette problem with delays on the order of days before a reply.
Another thing is, most of my friends who are non-techies have given up on email because: spam, and junk from friends. Well, neither of these is really a problem: wonderful, free spam filtering systems exist that will reliably get rid of 99% of your spam, and simple self discipline (and being politely firm with your contacts) will prevent your inbox from becoming the destination for circulated crap.
If I want instant conversations, I pick up the phone or go outside. This is coming from a young guy who is plenty literate with computers! Besides, you can't reliably pick up cues from girls behind a keyboard.
SMS and IM is everywhere, EMail only at your desk (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.wikindex.com/)
The other cultural thirk here is that Koreans, especially in Seoul, are very very demanding of instant answers to the slightest issue. As such, there is no taboo for answering your cell phone in the middle of a meeting (by contrast, this is as bad as farting in a meeting in Japan).
I will say that email is still used for "official" stuff: official sales responses, bids, inquiries, and for formal appointment arranging.
In Korea e-mail is only for spammers (Score:4, Informative)
Great to see my motherland mentioned on /. (Score:3, Informative)
In America, e-mail is more widely used because it has a longer history. It's been around since the beginning of the Internet, and e-mail was a much better method of communication during the dial-up era. If you're getting charged by the minute (which is what used to happen on dial-up), you want to download your e-mail, read it offline, compose replies (still offline), then connect to send them so that you're not getting charged for nothing. Even after broadband became more popular (and dial-up cheaper), e-mail remained popular because it was well established.
In Korea, Internet access exploded onto the scene with broadband access almost from the start. Imagine a situation where barely anybody uses the Internet, and then one day everybody's on a DSL or cable connection. Also imagine that these users have never been exposed to e-mail. Sure, some of them will use e-mail (especially in the academic circle), but most of the users will be drawn to the communications applications that are more interactive, less boring(?), and require more bandwidth. E-mail just has that much less of an established reputation in such a situation.
Another eason may be cultural. E-mail is time consuming (compared to cell phones or IM), and it is a much more private medium. Koreans are very impatient, and they are also a very community-oriented nation of people. E-mail just doesn't cut it for these types of people, since you never know how long it'll take to get a reply back. Message boards, blogs, IM, and cell phone conversations do, however, satisfy the need for instant communication and community-oriented communication.
Just my $0.02 (or roughly 20 won)Well if they expect that to catch on here... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://mal-2.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 15 2004, @05:41PM)
Mal-2
This is more about the availability of desktops... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.beijingsolution.com/)
What you have to remember is that in this part of the world, not everyone can afford a computer desktop, but even my maid has a mobile phone, with SMS messaging.
Another important factor is that young people don't always have a personal computer that is private from their parents, while their mobile phone is typically very private. Also, most younger people don't like to hang around the house, they are typically out meeting with friends in some youth oriented location. This is both personal preference and the fact that they want some privacy. So SMS get's really popular because you can always have your mobile phone around.
There are some political issues. Lots of people are more concerned that the gov't is checking emails servers for what is classified as subversive activity. Not that SMS is more secure, but I think that the gov't hasn't quite caught on to it yet, dispite what happened in the Philopeans a few years ago
Another thing is that SMS and IM are more interactive, and during that time of life you are working a lot to develop your interpersonal skills, so you want to spend a lot of time chatting.
Why not just call and talk? Well, typically SMS messagin is very cheap compared to talking on the phone. Actually when I first got to Beijing I really annoyed some people when I was calling them, because I was costing them a lot of money.
You can also type SMS with your hand hidden in a coat pocket or in a purse, which is something that a lot of younger people in class do. You can SMS your friends while sitting in class much more easily than calling them on the mobile.
When you get older and have your own apartment you don't mind spending so much time there because your parents are not peeking into your bedroom. So you will be more comfortable to use technologies like email with a desktop, that is tied to a single location. I don't worry that my parents will walk in and see me blowing kisses at my girlfriend when we talk online, for example.
But yeah, this can be a big generation gap. I run a couple of social groups that I use email mailing lists to organize, and several of the younger people in the group are always sending me SMS's because they don't read the emails. So I guess I will look into some sort of SMS to email gateway, since the whole point of having the mailing list is so that I don't spend too much time organizing the projects.
Anyway, just remember that tech is always evolving and that if you want to keep of the lines of comunication you need to stay on top of it.
Hardly new.. (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.kelv.net/)
The whole time though, for anything I want to pay serious attention to I'll use e-mail or the phone.
It's just kids wanting instant gratification, same as ever. Nothing has changed; rather they just have more toys to play with. Patience is a virtue.