[ams6110]

From one of the slides: Email is for grandparents

I think this varies. I'm not a grandparent, but am close to 50 years old and have been working in computer technology my entire adult life. I have an Android smartphone (got my first one this year) but have not installed any apps on it. Email, web browser, text messages, calendar, contacts, and maps are all there and I can't really think of anything else useful I'd want it to do.

My mother-in-law on the other hand IS a grandmother and she's constantly using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and half a dozen other things on her phone. I don't see the point in any of it and don't use any of those things.

Not sure who is the outlier.

[jrkelly]

Yeah, my email usage at age 12-15 was also almost nil and that was in the 90s. Doubt stats at 12-15 correlate well to whether those kids will use email when they hit college.

[jff]

Agreed, I didn't have much use for email at 15, because I interacted with all my classmates and teachers every day; coordinating things was simple, and all my schoolwork was submitted in person. I primarily used email for asking questions on Linux mailing lists, and even that pretty rarely--15 year old me would probably be pretty shocked at my current level of email traffic.

[Rapzid]

I'd say it depends. I'm a 30 year old Linux/Windows system engineer, spend too much spare time reading about distributed systems and programming matters, but really only use my phone(Nexus5) the same with the addition of pager duty and the odd boarding pass. The "basics" really. My mate is 7 years younger in the same industry and I don't believe he's snapgrams or instachats. Partner doesn't even want a smartphone because she's afraid she'll lose it. My father uses Facebook way more than I do.

[dasmoth]

While e-mail may not be perfect, it still seems to be the best medium there is for people who collaborate best via asynchronous communication. The antipattern of using more synchronous media -- the telephone, in particular -- to force quick decisions is obnoxious and I think ultimately counterproductive.

[mvzink]

This is exactly why I think Talko is so cool. Not quite a replacement for email, but has some good ideas.

[kalleboo]

When I saw that slide I said to myself "rather, email is for people who have a job". But who knows, maybe that generation will reject email and create some brilliant collaboration tools that are modeled more after the instant messaging model? Was Wave just ahead of it's time?

[pixl97]

Email is for people who don't like reliable communication.

Too many blackholes for your message to fall into. Too many spammers, I block 90% of around 100,000 messages a day. Too many servers use unreliable blacklists. No notification anything has gone wrong.

[ececconi]

You know I used to keep in touch with people primarily through emails. I don't know when, but recently - most of my communication switched to messaging apps like messenger iMessage and whatsapp. I never thought it would happen. I tripped onto email. Now I realize it's pretty good. I still do pump out emails for more formal writing through and longer messaging, but truth of the matter is with messaging apps I'm in contact with more people with shorter more personalized bursts of information.