Death of e-mail

At the time of 2002, all my family members were idols "ecstatic". The older generation believes that signing up for an email account is a necessary and necessary job - if they can't make phone calls to their children, they will meet them online, by email.

My nephew is an example. It never said more than 2 sentences in the phone, as if it was like being stuck in front of a computer screen. People can only send messages to her via email, but no one took it as a bother.

Cruel reality

Two years later, at the time of 2004, I discovered the "harsh" truth: She had long ago abandoned her email. Instead, it's just busy sending SMS and IM messages to friends.

I realized that using email is no longer a symbol of "trendy tech adults" anymore. On the contrary, I look like an old-fashioned old woman.

We, people over the age of 25, cannot imagine a life without email. But with the generation of MySpace and Facebook now, it's hard to imagine an email-only life.

I still remember the proud moment in 1996, when I sent the first email from the university's computer lab. I used to think: Nothing will be faster, and easier than sending an email.

10 years later, email is gradually being isolated and spurned. According to a 2005 Pew study, nearly half of the teenage Internet population likes to chat with friends over IM. Last year, comScore said it was down 8% from teenagers' email usage a year ago.

Between the era of mobile phones and Facebook, Second Life, Yahoo! And old Hotmail is becoming more and more out of place.

But inevitable?

Source: Infotech Looking at that situation, it is hard to think that just a few years ago, email was the fundamental foundation of Internet applications. Email has completely changed the way we connect, communicate with friends, relatives, colleagues. Sitting down at a table and drafting a mail has become a routine of hundreds of millions of people.

You can blame the death of the email for "trendy" disease in young people. In their eyes, not using Facebook or MySpace is not a player. Everyone wants to own the latest, best phone model.

However, I think there is still another reason why email quickly fell out of favor. That's because email is not perfect. Both IM, SMS, blog and virtual social networks take off because of the good exploitation of email weaknesses.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of a teen. First of all, you will never send an email to . 200 friends, with the content "Friday is there, party?".

But just need a status line on Yahoo Messenger or Facebook social network, you can "broadcast" this message to all your friends without any effort.

Want to plan a weekend party? It would be foolish to email everyone and long wait for a reply. It will be much faster if you exchange IM with friends.

Wanting to express my affection for someone, just post the message on the personal page of Facebook and MySpace, so the whole world will know.

And finally, what can be fast, permanent and intuitive by contacting a cell phone? You can argue with "boyfriend" all night without even leaving the party. The next morning, you were able to correct the "Relationship Status" in your MySpace profile as "Single, need to find a new girlfriend / boyfriend".

Still worth the price

After analyzing it, we found that the death of the email was not surprising. Teenagers only do what they do: Flirt, gossip, gather together.

In addition to email, all other forms of communication are highly dynamic, while email has something that is calm, quiet and passive. For them, why "write mail" (A very time-consuming story) when you can "talk" directly with each other?

So, even if it only takes a few seconds to send an email, the children still consider this contact form to be "slow and tortuous".

Come back to my nephew. It says that every day, on average, its cell phone receives no fewer than 50 messages, both SMS and IM. Friends of the same age as her, who would sneak into Yahoo Messenger or Facebook right in class, when at home and even in bed.

However, in the adult population, email is still a valuable asset. The success of mobile email service and BlackBerry smartphone line is clear evidence.

If IM and SMS only have medium transmission quality, if not low, then the email is full of affection. It is like a diary that records your emotions and thoughts, your daily work.

My colleague still kept in his mailbox the "flirtatious" emails from his first time. I have emails that my parents told me that I must open them later for my children to read .

Difficult to extinction

Thinking more realistically, there seems to be a "generation gap" between the first and second generation Internet users.

Today's students are almost indifferent, or never want to look at email sent by the school. Wisdom advice from grandparents and parents forward for never being read by children.

Only in the workplace, the email proves its strength. No public servant is not using Microsoft Outlook as soon as the device is turned on, but absolutely not Facebook or MySpace.

However, I still believe that giving up the habit of using email is not painful, it is very difficult. Maybe email will never go extinct completely (We still need a means to send long messages, such as a CV).

Besides, email services are also actively improving. Gmail integrates email with IM, allowing you to chat with your friends right next to the mailbox.

It's not hard to imagine a future PC screen, when you can choose between sending an email, IM, Status or posting a blog. At that time, even email believers like my parents did not feel lost like old dinosaurs anymore.

Trong Cam