The jury is out on the future of email, according to new research from TalkTalk, in collaboration with the University of Kent.
The research found that email could become obsolete in 10 years, replaced by instant messaging and social network sites.
These sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and MySapce, are seen as more fashionable and faster and easier to use, plus they can be accessed from anywhere with mobile phone technology.
Although 15 to 24-year-olds do use email, they use instant messaging and social networking sites more often, according to the research, and on the flip side, older generations are more reliant on email and don’t find it as easy to shift to using the latest communication technology.
OneNewsPage.com asked its users to respond to the following question:
‘Will email be defunct in 10 years?’
The respondents were evenly divided. Fifty per cent agreed it would be defunct, the other half disagreed.
The survey was conducted by OneNewsPage.com over two days. The question was displayed on www.onenewspage.com 57, 604 times, and 240 people answered the poll.
But despite the results, I have to say that I do not think that email will ever be ‘defunct’. How would businesses run without email? Haven’t the advent of smartphones proved how much we rely on email – always having it with us?
Email will never die. Dan Grabham from TechRadar magazine agrees. He told Sky News, “Email won’t completely die off – it’ll probably still be used for some important purposes such as sending crucial files to someone particular.
“But it’s clear that for quick, direct communication Twitter and other social systems are easier to use and can garner a far quicker response – not least because inboxes continue to fill up with unstoppable junk.”