Is E-mail Just for Old People?

[dragon wench]

I just had this delivered to my inbox via WIN XP News. And it made me wonder, what is your favourite mode of communication?

For me, it depends on the situation. I prefer either in person, email or IM.
I'm often uncomfortable with the phone, and while I still like "snail mail," I like the instantaneous feel of email and IM.


Is E-mail Just for Old People?

A new study on the Internet and American life from Pew Research has been getting a lot of publicity this last week. According to its surveys, the vast majority of teenagers prefer instant messaging to e-mail, especially for communicating with their peers. In fact, researchers say young folks regard e-mail as a "quaint way of communicating with older relatives." Wow. And we old folks thought e-mail was still the "killer app" of the Internet.

This brings up some interesting questions about the roles of different communications methods in both our business and personal lives and why we choose a particular communications type over another in a given situation. After all, if we have something to say to someone, we now have a number of different ways we can do it. The primary methods are: in person, by telephone, "snail mail," e-mail, or IM. Of course, there are variations on these such as fax or teleconferencing, and archaic options such as telegrams (or carrier pigeons).

An intriguing question is whether the choice is really age-specific (teens IM, adults send e-mail and the really elderly still write letters and buy stamps from the post office), a matter of personality (there are "phone people" and there are compulsive text chatters) or purpose driven (e-mail is useful in situations where you want to avoid a direct confrontation and snail mail is even better for those with whom you aren't on speaking terms).

I think most people probably have a preferred communications style. As a writer, I (not surprisingly) generally like written communications. I tend to "think with my fingers" and am more articulate and more comfortable writing things down. For a large part of my life, that meant handwritten or typed/printed letters. Today, I do as much of my business correspondence as possible via e-mail and a good deal of my personal communications, as well. I know others who are "phone freaks." If they have a choice, they prefer voice communications - something that I avoid if at all possible except with the closest friends and family members. Others want "face time" and will go to the expense and effort of driving or flying to see you to discuss matters that seem trivial.

Despite my general preference, I find the phone useful when I need to get an answer to a question right now. However, I'm put off by the voice mail systems used by so many organizations these days. This is particularly true when dealing with public utilities, government agencies, and the like who have a captive customer base and don't seem to feel the need to be consumer-friendly.

The typical call goes like this: you have to go through a long, drawn out process, selecting a language, inputting account numbers, etc. (which wouldn't be so bad if, when/if you finally reach a human being, you weren't immediately asked for the account number again), and listening to a menu of reasons for your call (which inevitably doesn't include my particular reason for calling). Then you wait on hold for minutes that seem like hours. If you're lucky, you wait in silence; if you're not, you're forced to listen to someone else's idea of universally non-offensive music or worse, a radio broadcast complete with commercials. If you do get through to a person, chances are about fifty-fifty that you'll be put on hold or transferred (or both) during the conversation. And if that happens, chances are again about even that your call will be dropped during the hold/transfer. If that happens, you're back to square one: you have to go through the whole thing all over again and explain your problem to a whole new person so he/she can perpetuate the cycle by putting you on hold or transferring you.

Now you see why I consider the phone a last resort. I am one of those dinosaurs who does still actually send snail mail sometimes. There's nothing like a certified letter to get someone's attention. My experiences with the Post Office's delayed delivery (which I've discussed here before and won't go into again) have made me reluctant to use "regular" (non-tracked) mail for anything important, though. As for faxing, regular readers already know how annoying I find it to have to pay long distance charges to send a document that could just as easily be e-mailed.

I think preferences may also have something to do with whether you're a visual, auditory or kinesthetic personality type. I'm visual, and that goes along with my desire to see things in writing (when someone wants to discuss contract terms with me over the phone instead of via e-mail, for instance, I always wonder if it's because they don't want what they say to be "on the record"). As a visual person, I learn best from books, presentations or live demonstrations, and get almost nothing out of audio taped lessons or lectures that consist of someone standing at a podium and talking. That's probably the reason I dislike phones. Auditory people love to listen and kinesthetic people, who like to interact by "doing," tend to be "face time" folks.

That brings us to instant messaging and other "chat" methods (Web chat, SMS). Since they provide visual input, I should love them, but I don't. I like the text aspect of IM, seeing on the screen what I'm about to say before I hit the Send button (that "thinking with the fingers" thing again). I can hardly claim it's a useless technology - after all, I met my husband those many years ago in an online chat. I also find it useful for short exchanges between just a few people. Large scale chats (business meetings, etc.) tend to get confusing as multiple people try to communicate at once, with delays between questions and responses filled in with someone else's questions and lags due to folks who are slow typists or who are multitasking. Nonetheless, I prefer the group chat to a group voice conference call almost any time.

E-mail is still king in my book, though. Unlike chat and the phone, you don't have to worry about whether the person is "there" or whether you're interrupting some other conversation or activity. Unlike the phone and faxing, you don't have to pay extra if the recipient is far away. Unlike in-person meetings and video conferencing, you don't have to get all dressed up or even comb your hair. When I'm at the computer, I'm usually working. To me, IM is intrusive unless the matter is really urgent. Too often, people assume that if you're online, you're fair game. E-mail gets to me almost instantly, but I'm not pressured to reply instantly if I don't want to. Call me old fashioned, but I think it's the best of both worlds.

[Luis Antonio]

As a sample: Me vs my Sister.

Sis uses:

MSN
Orkut
Cellphone
Mail

I use:

Mail
Forum
MSN
Orkut

That's in a daily basis. She's only 4 years younger than I am. Also, she is bored to have to write down a whole mail. Her friends avoid mailing because in the Orkut, for example, they can just say it and let anyone know about it. She uses mail only for private letters when her boyfriend/nominee to boyfriend is not online. So, mail is pretty useless. When I offered to configure Thunderbird so that she could use it as mail manager she told me "why thunderbird if I can just use msn?".

Me, in the other hand, me is an avid user of mail. And thunderbird. While I'm online (not on the msn the whole day as I used to do at work) the mail manager is turned on all day. Orkut is only a tool because there are some friends who are far away now that I'm on the farm, and they aint internet users, but they like orkut, so, you figure. Then msn. MSN is cool for instant spam, and for work quick conversation, but its also good to make you keep flying and without working for countless hours. So I'm leaving MSN turned off like almost the whole day to avoid waste of time. In suma, my favourite ways of comunication are forums and mail. But I do feel old when I see my sister saying that mails are dull.

[werebeargoddess]

I use e-mail with some of my friends, but most of the time I just IM people

[Rookierookie]

I use email.

[Vicsun]

They both have their uses.

IM is for conversation - messaging someone usually results in an instant reply, akin to a telephone call. The fact that you can communicate in real time is attractive.
Email can be used for permanent messaging and documentation; emails stick around, while IM is temporary. Because of its permanency, email is much better suited for any sort of formal communication. What is more, there's no pressure to reply to an email right away, making multiple emails easier to process (another advantage of email in formalized institutions). The fact that there's no pressure to reply instantly is also what makes email unattractive.

IM is to Email as telephones are to letters.

[penguin_king]

i use msn and email, msn more often because almost all my friends use it, and it's more likely that they're online than off, but i use email if there's something i want to say and don't want or expect an instant reply

[thantor3]

I largely prefer email over phone and IM. When I am online, I typically have something I am doing and a deadline for doing it. Gone are the days when I could just hang out and spam. When someone IMs me, I have to continually interrupt what I am doing to respond to them. IMing is great when you are gaming, because you and the other person are involved in the same activity. But unless you made a "date" to IM someone, or you are working on a project with them, I find it annoying. After the initial honeymoon period, I rarely have any IM program running on my computer.

In terms of the phone, I never turn my cell phone on unless I want to call someone. I let the voice mail pick it up and return the call when it is convenient for me. When I see people answering their cell phones in supermarkets, on the toilet, or while having sex in the park, it looks exactly like a dog on a leash. A "golden leash" perhaps, but a leash nonetheless. I fully acknowledge, however, that if I was in college, or single, or in an occupation like real estate, it would be a totally different story. But for my life style and schedule, a silent cell phone is a happy cell phone.

The other thing that is totally annoying to me about cell phones is the way people have no qualms about turning a public space into their living room. I once listened to a guy loudly break up with his girlfriend in a bookstore, which included a detailed discourse on the merits and deficiencies of both his and her erotic proclivities. Real classy.

A final note about phones. Since there are so many ways to communicate these days, it seems like when people actually get you on the phone, they are not inclined to let you get off. That is fine with family and friends, but do I really want to hear all about a co-worker's angst concerning whether to get a prostate exam at the drive through mini-mall? Um... no. It's like deciding whether to see a movie at the theatre or on DVD. At $8 to $20 a pop for the theatre experience, not to mention the traffic, drive time, and lack of access to ETOH and tasty munchies, most people are gonna get the email.

I really like to send and receive letters… there is something so personal and intimate about them. Unfortunately, they take a lot of time and my handwriting is terrible. But I do send them on special occasions and bemoan the loss of this method of communication. Especially the sending and receiving of love letters. There are some amazing examples of classic love letters that still exist and they are truly works of art. Not likely that we are going to see much in that regard from IMs.

Having given it a lot of thought, I really am liking the idea of the carrier pigeons, though...

[dragon wench]

I tend to think the various modes of communication are contextual. Each one has its uses on different occasions.

@Than,
I certainly hear you regarding cell phones. Unless I am expecting a call, or want to make one, I keep mine turned off as well. They're incredibly intrusive on so many levels. I particularly get aggravated, when somebody leaves their phone on when they are *supposed* to be spending time with you. Or you haven't seen them for a while and they show up with a damned phone glued to their ear. Then, once they have finished their phone conversation, they open up a Blackberry....


IMO, these devices do have their uses, but I think people can lose sight of the fact that those uses should be limited. And, all too often, if you comment on the fact the above sort of behaviour is rude, they look at you in total shock.

[fable]

There was an incident that occured a couple of years ago up in Boston. A conductor was leading the symphony orchestra in a concert. Audiences were required to turn off their cellphones before entering.

A cellphone started ringing obnoxiously during the performance; and the conductor stopped. He turned, glared at the offender (who simply kept sitting there) and said, "We won't continue until you leave." At that point, a couple of ushers walked down, and escorted the man and his party out. The audience burst into brief impromptu applause, and the performance continued.

I don't know why people feel their conversations are more important than everything else in existence, but it does seem to be part of modern culture. Maybe it's the advertising, that portrays cellphone users as young, hip, connected to the universe, technologically advanced, etc. Actually, they're just consumers.

As for email being for oldsters: that's pretty funny! Because this forum, after all, essentially reproduces the main features of email. Text isn't part of the ancien regime. It's a necessary aspect of life to people who want to engage in multiple-threaded conversations simultaneously. If anything, that's a more revolutionary system than cells and such, whose paradigm is single-threaded verbal conversation.

[Lestat]

For me it's fairly simple:
Long distance comm: e-mail.
Short distance comm: mobile phone (text & voice).
Since I'm single and moving around quite a lot there is actually little sense in me having a fixed line (and I'm not in Belgium often enough to invest in a fixed line for fast internet access).
Time differences and slow internet access mean that I'm not really into IM.

And I think, more than any other means of communication, these two (mobiles & e-mail) are also the ones having the most profound impact in the developing world.

For international organisations with operations all over the world, e-mail must have seemed a gift from the gods: quick communication over the whole range of timezones and only minimal equipment required. With a satphone and a laptop you can communicate with the whole world, exchange extensive messages from literally anywhere. A humanitarian organisation can send an exploration mission to a conflict zone or a region struck by famine and be in touch to ready the necessary supplies, all in a matter of hours. Even my eldest colleagues (60+ years) in the development field have taken very quickly to e-mail and it is something about which they are really, really enthusiastic, having known the age that even a fax was a novelty (so in that sense, DW, it might be considered something for old people )

And concerning mobile phones: thanks to lower investment costs (compared with fixed line) & prepaid schemes, telecom firms are willing to invest in poor countries: here in Liberia alone, a country that was in civil war exactly 2 years ago, there are now 4 competing mobile phone operators. Mobile phones have become widespread in the developing world. Even poorer households can afford them and if I compare how many people had access to telecommunications on my first longterm job in Africa (Rwanda 1998: only the elite) to here and now (even a driver or maid may have a phone), it is simply astonishing. I'm not exaggerating when I say there is a telecom revolution going on.

[Tamerlane]

Big fan of e-mail, I run a mail server at home and I send myself documents all the time so I have a history of everything, very important for auditing purposes.

[C Elegans]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vicsun IM is for conversation - messaging someone usually results in an instant reply, akin to a telephone call. The fact that you can communicate in real time is attractive. Email can be used for permanent messaging and documentation; emails stick around, while IM is temporary. Because of its permanency, email is much better suited for any sort of formal communication. What is more, there's no pressure to reply to an email right away, making multiple emails easier to process (another advantage of email in formalized institutions).

This I agree with, and if there is really an age difference in use of these two communication methods, I think these features are exactly what explains it.

IM is for social conversation, just like the phone was before. Teenagers can spend hours every day just talking with their peers. They don't work and they don't have any pressing deadlines while they are sitting at their computers, so they can use real time communication, whereas for most people who has a job, it is disturbing with a medium where people expect instant replies. I never use IM at work, I only use it when I'm working in a low intensive way that demands a lot of thinking time, for instance reading complicated texts or writing certain types of texts.

E-mail can be stored, which is often necessary in a professional context. I often have detailed and complex professional discussions with my collaborators abroad by e-mail. The general idea that e-mail is something you reply to when you have time, makes it non-intrusive and also suitable for communication between different time zones. Also, in an e-mail you can structure your text and write much longer than is convenient over IM. I would never use IM for professional discussions like this.

Generally though, I prefer meeting over all other media, both for private and professional communication.