"E-Mail is Probably Going Away"

Last Wednesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg made waves by predicting the end of e-mail as we know it.

Here’s an excerpt from a Fast Company article on her speech:

“If you want to know what people like us will do tomorrow, you look at what teenagers are doing today,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told the audience at Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference yesterday. And according to Sandberg, only 11% of teens email daily–clearly, a huge generational drop. Instead, they are increasingly turning to SMS (or Twitter) and social networks for communication.

“E-mail–I can’t imagine life without it–is probably going away,” she said.

Her thesis was based on Pew Internet’s recent report titled “Teens and Mobile Phones” (see full report here).  Specifically, e-mail was cited by teens surveyed as the least commonly used medium to communicate with friends.   Communication is most commonly conducted via mobile devices by texting (SMS) or speaking on the phone.  The same report states that one in three teens sends more than 100 text messages a day, or 3000 texts a month.

Today’s teens are tomorrow’s young alumni.  While teenagers will certainly adopt e-mail as it becomes required for school and professional communications, the rapid increase in the mobile share of teen communications can’t be ignored.

Do you think traditional e-mail is effective for communication with young alumni?

Ever True!
Brent

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