Here’s a very interesting commentary from Slate about the generational difference in electronic communication.  It does a great job of describing a possible communication workflow a teenager might use instead of e-mail.  It also talks about the transient quality of the IM, text, and Twitter and likens e-mail writing to old fashioned letter writing.  Surprisingly, some of this is true in my life too.  My husband and I send most of our throw-away conversations (“Lunch?”, “come get me”, “I’m leaving work” and the like) via cell phone text messaging. I send a lot of messages at work via e-mail, but most of messages I send have details that are too much for text message.  I haven’t gotten into Jabber (IM) and I don’t intend to.   When I want to broadcast to wide audience, I do it through blogging within work and outside of work.  There are many modes to perform different layers of communication.  A lot of it has to do with the content and intended audience for me.  Anyhow, read that article and then think about how you now communicate with the world.

technology

The Death of E-Mail

Teenagers are abandoning their Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts. Do the rest of us have to?

By Chad Lorenz
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007, at 12:32 PM ET

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2177969/ <!–rs = PStax; DM_addToLoc(“thisNode”, rs); DM_tag();