Social Media, Socialnomics, and email

Wow, its been three months since I've blogged. How the time flies when you're not having fun. So, sickness aside for now, I'm going to be doing a couple of posts in the next couple days. Later today or tomorrow I promise a District 9 review (pretty glowingly positive), a look at the Lions rebranding (also glowingly positive), and pretty soon a look at one of my favorite local establishments, Josepha's Hair Salon (whom I plan to challenge to give me Bettie Page hair for Halloween). But for now...

I got thinking about social media and Gen y/z today, mostly because of this excellent little video:


One of the statistics that really amazed me in that is that many people of Gen y/z supposedly don't use email. I myself am on the cusp between Gen X and Gen Y, and I found myself horrified by the idea of not using email.

Then I considered a little further. What do I use email for these days? Almost all my personal interactions with friends and family online are thru IM and Facebook. My personal email is pretty much only used for Trillium Arts business, and to recieve the ads (targeted newsletter communications) that I've elected to recieve on a daily basis, and I wouldn't appreciate if they popped up on IM. My work interaction is much thru IM and ICQ as well; however, when I want a hard copy of well thought out reaction to a design, I instantly go to the email. Its also still the best way to communicate with the entire team at one go.

What it comes down to is, social media is awesome for... social interation. But I have a feeling when those Gen y/zer's get office jobs they'll discover that they had more use for email than they previously thought -- even if it's only to keep old fuddy-duddies like me happy knowing that they considered what they were going to say for three seconds before hitting the send key.