E-mail Is For Old People 562
Strolls writes "Although the article itself doesn't seem quite as exciting or newsworthy, this headline from Reuters amused me mightily. Reuters' summary is here and here's the original survey by Pew Internet and American Life Project." From the article: "Internet users from 12 to 17 years old say e-mail is best for talking to parents or institutions, but they are more likely to fire up IM when talking with each other, the nonprofit Pew Internet and American Life Project found. E-mail is still used by 90 percent of online teens. But the survey found greater enthusiasm for instant messaging."
Guess I'm old then. (Score:3, Interesting)
IM vs. e-mail in the office (Score:5, Interesting)
IM is used when we have a quick question, need to check and see if someone is in before we transfer a call, want to know who wants to get some Chineese for lunch, etc.
We e-mail our clients. We e-mail project status reports, team task lists, meeting agendas.
IM replaces what we would say on a phone. e-mail replaces what we would print on a printer.
IM VS Email (Score:2, Interesting)
I must be REALLY old (Score:2, Interesting)
In related news, I will never understand these people that insist on using IM over their phone! Fucking, just call the person! Ass.
It's true.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Old people should be happy!! (Score:2, Interesting)
They aren't calling long distance on the phone or using too many cell phones minutes to talk to their friends.
AND In many cases they aren't tying up a phone line (if they have broadband).
I say this because it's the adults who will most likely be paying the phone bills and/or not being able to use the phone if their teenager is on it all day.
Re:IM and Email complement one another (Score:3, Interesting)
Aye. You are correct, sir.
At the last company I worked for (a startup), I set up a jabber server on the local network, one that would be accessible over the VPN, too. It was extremely handy for those times where someone was offsite, perhaps visiting a customer, working from home or travelling somewhere and you just needed to ask a quick question or get a quick status. We used jabber server and GAIM clients so the cost was free (apart from setup time and a little account and log maintenance from time to time).
When it was first turned up, there was some neat-o factor involved, but eventually it became part of the communications mix. While I can't point to any really obvious places where "IM saved us money or a customer account", having it as a part of the mix certainly improved efficiency.
I'd be interested in knowing what other slashdotters have experienced when they've added IM to their communications mix, or had it available from the get-go.
Re:OMG,itz s0 gnu! (Score:3, Interesting)
Do any of the current IM clients send each keystroke?
Sure, because teenagers are shortsighted twits (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Think the whole world revolves around them,
2) that is does, or should do so right now,
3) that anyone who isn't talking to them right now is a loser,
4) and that MTV has further reduced their attention span to that of a gnat.
In other news: teenagers think belts, savings accounts, and employers are also for Old People.
"Timmy, write your grandmother a thank you note for paying your tuition this semester."
"I can't - she's not online. What an old loser!"
a hybrid communication standard (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I must be REALLY old (Score:1, Interesting)
For example, I send messages to my husband all the time about things that he needs to know about, but doesn't have to give me a response for. Example: "I called the person you asked me to and he says he'll meet you at XX 'oclock." My husband needs to know this, but I also don't have to interrupt a meeting or whatever else he might be doing in order to make him answer the phone - a 2-second glance at the screen on his phone is all that's needed (and that can be delayed, if necessary or appropriate).
Re:Different technologies, different purpose (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:a hybrid communication standard (Score:3, Interesting)
Old Memories (Score:3, Interesting)
A good email database would store all these messages, as well as phone messages (including recordings of live, synchronous standard conversations), faxes, and every other "personal message", in a structure allowing a "metaformat". Depending on the MIME type of the message, it would associate with MIME-dependent variants of its address and transport. Even mismatches, like IM's missing "Subject:" data, could default to "IM: Alice to Bob 2005/7/28 13:48 EST" or the first line of the body. Then people could correspond across all these messaging techs, without getting trapped in the means to the end of interpersonal communication. The "universal inbox" could transcend all the media, and just bring people together, if it mapped these formats within a GUI that even old people could just use, without getting hung up on the technical limits.
Teens are different (Score:1, Interesting)
--Mike Perry, Seattle
Just wait until SPIM really takes hold... (Score:3, Interesting)
Teens and adults have different comm needs. (Score:5, Interesting)
Adults (in general) have social networks that are well-established and don't require constant work. Their communication needs are more oriented to planning and coordination of longer-term projects, whether business, day-to-day "housekeeping", politics, skill-building, or any of a host of other things that are longer term and more asynchronous. Email is a good match for that.
Re:Yep. (Score:2, Interesting)
I wouldn't say anything about the functionality of most of the IM clients is revolutionary in any meaningful sense. Some allow you to send pictures and whatnot, giving them a certain IRC-ness. Some allow you to spawn other networked programs (e.g. games) and automatically pass your friend's IP. Of course, since everyone lives behind a firewall these days, that's pretty much useless. I've seen one at least that includes a shared white-board for multiple users, which is pretty cool. Needless to say, that's not one that's in common use, though. So, in summary, what makes these IMs "better" than write or talk were? Sexy GUI interface.
Re:IM = Instant Gratification (Score:3, Interesting)
What do you talk about? The meaning of life? Eternal salvation? Your projects at work? It's all bullshit. You're just an egotistical asshole who thinks that whatever he believes is important is, in fact, important. It's about the same as when you were a teenager, except your perspective has shifted a little.
Re:Different technologies, different purpose (Score:3, Interesting)
The mindset of e-mail is presentation, hence why e-mail clients have spell checkers.
Yeah? I get emails from all sorts of people with poor spelling and use of crazy abbreviations. My mother does this.
On the other hand, I use IM to communicate with all my college friends, and we all write reasonably correct, if conversational English when using it, just as we do in e-mails.
Both IM and e-mail, when used in the hands of children, will contain bastardized English. When used for business purposes, or by people who give a shit, it will contain proper English.
One day, kids will learn that the way they're writing makes them looks like idiots, just like whatever generation you're in learned how stupid a lot of the stuff they were doing is. The world isn't going to hell in a hand-basket, and IM isn't going to be the downfall of civilization, any more than the telephone was when letter writing was the primary form of communication. You can get off your high horse now.
Re:Instant messaging sucks (Score:2, Interesting)