20-somethings unexplainable aversion to email

[bruce_nyc]

It's such a strange phenomenon... 20-somethings have an unexplainable aversion to using email.

All of my Thai boyfriends are under 27.

They clearly have one thing in common with my neices and nephews who are also 18-26....

It's not that they don't HAVE email..... Or that they don't KNOW HOW to use it....

They just can't be bothered to use it.

Meanwhile, everyone over 30 uses email as their primary form of communication..... even more important than their telephone at this point. One of my friends, who I met at Cafe Royale in Pattaya, is his his 70s, and he just learned how to use email this week. :-)

I just don't get it. I don't get why the under 30 crowd just won't use email. They use Facebook, SMS, LINE, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, Tango, and every other crazy thing... They even regulary use Scruff, Grindr, Jackd, and Growlr... But send him an email and you will NEVER never ever get a reply. They don't look at email ever.

I don't know if it's an attention span issue..... or an aversion to all the automated spam crap we get in email....

The only way I can get someone under 30 to look at an email.... is to get him or her on the telephone and talk them through the process... It's as painful as talking them through how to do some plumbing work under the kitchen sink... over the phone.

It's the wierdest thing to me.

What's worse... They each seem to have their own "favorite", or preference, for which app they prefer to communicate with. Boyfriend number 1, who's 44, prefers SMS or voice phone call. Boyfriend number 2, who's 26, prefers Google Talk or Facebook. Boyfriend number 3, who's 24, prefers Viber or WhatsApp. Boyfriend number 4, who's 18, will only use LINE.

If you screw up and use the wrong app..... There is a very good chance your message will never be read.

Have you had a similar experience with Thai boys..... or 20-somethings in general....?

As I said, this seems to be universal worldwide.... with that generation. My neices and nephews all over the USA, my friends' kids of that age, and even young friends in Europe, and all the young people in Thailand.... They all seem to be exactly the same about this.

SMS seems to be the one method of communication that seems to be the most universal in their world. And if there is a second, back-up, method..... it's Facebook. Email is not even in the top 100 ways they can be reached.

Another weird phenomenon I've noticed: They only read and reply to the very last text you sent to them.

In other words, if you send him a text ( "question one" )..... and he doesn't reply.... then you send him another text ( "question two" )..... and he doesn't reply.... then you send him another text ( "question three" )..... even if it's over the course of 24 hours...

He will only read and answer the last one --- question three.

It's as if scrolling up and reading question one or question two..... has never ocurred to them.

This also seems to be universal.

Are 20-somethings brains getting re-wired somehow??

:umn:

[krobbie]

Bruce,
I thought I was the only one who noticed this. If I send an email I jolly well expect a reply. Not a short txt, but a reply. As it happens I also have WhatsApp. The reason is that my bf (who now is in NZ with me) asked me to get the app some time ago as the messages are not charged (free) and you can also send photos etc. We still use it in NZ.

I suspect most of those other sites are also free hence the reason to use them as opposed to txting. Not sure why the aversion to email as most have free hotmail or similar. I don't really get it either. Perhaps it is something to do with limited English in the case of the Thai guys?

[bruce_nyc]

I posted about this same topic on my facebook...

A 19 year old close friend of mine in London replied. He said, "Ha Ha. I only use email for my work. And I don't want my email getting clogged up with messages from my friends. So with friends, I only use SMS. Unless we are sending pictures. Then we use whatsapp."

I replied, "Why don't you get a personal email account for communicating with your friends?" So far, surprise surprise..... no answer. :-)

Because they seem to be perfectly happy using any app that is free and has a very short text format, if I had to guess at this point, the reason is that they only want to use something with a very short text message format. ....and only real-time messaging.

For example, my 60 and 70 year old friends will sit down and write me an email that's 4 or 8 paragraphs long. It's just like my grandmother used to do when she would get out her typewriter and write a letter.

These 20-something year olds want to communicate in very short, 140 character, text messages. And they are only interested in communicating this way if you are alive and replying instantly. They have no interest in sending a message and waiting for 1 hour, or 1 day, for a reply. They want a reply instantly. They use texting the same way we use the telephone. They expect an immediate live answer. Or else they just "hang up".... in effect. They figure that if you're not alive and available to reply instantly, they'll just chat with you later.

This is all okay with me,..... But it loses one of the great advantages that email has. You cannot just sit down, independent of the time of day, and write whatever you have on your mind... You must wait until you can reach them live, and have a live conversation.... only 1 sentence at a time.

Yesterday, for example, I sent a message to my boyfriend number 3. He replied instantly and said, "I'm sorry. I'm sleeping now. Can we talk later?"

It's like all this sophisticated new technology has actually brought us backwards to the days when you picked up a telephone and got someone live. If it was not a good time to talk, you might get scolded for bothering them at that hour. And there was no real way to leave them a message without bothering them. What a crazy wacky time we live in. :-)

[bucknaway]

The times are-a-changing. I don't expect email from my friends. Friends either leave a voicemail or send a SMS. Communication is near realtime anymore and E-mail is a burden for work or advertisements.

If you are a friend, I will send you a sms or communicate with you on a platform that lets me know when you are free to talk.

I see Email as a slow boring version of an SMS message.

[rifraf]

Bruce, I only use email for work-related communication and hardly ever ring anyone for a chat anymore. Also, SMS is used less and less on a daily basis. And when I do use either of these services, the person I am communicating with most likely will be an elderly person.

All my family and friends (including Thais) either have WhatsApp or Line and this is how we communicate on a daily basis. Many of them have both of these apps, so we switch back and forth between them. Skype is also used but mostly with very close family and friends. Line will soon allow for file attachments to be sent using their service which will only further serve to relegate email to the dustbins of history in my daily communications.
Facebook is strictly a business-related communication tool for me. I have no personal account. It is though still the choice of communication for many people and Thais seem to absolutely love it.

Dave and Idol clubs both send event posters using Line and/or WhatsApp, so I find it easy to keep up with whatтАЩs happening. Idol tend to use SMS quite a lot as well. One of the mamasans at NAB has accounts with both of these instant messaging services which makes reserving tables and what have you much easier.

Dave and Idol both have excellent Facebook pages that are updated and well-maintained. Among the bars, the X-Boys franchise also does a good job with their Facebook presence. And of recent Cupidol bar has opened an account.

I very much like these new forms of communication. I was never a fan of ringing up people, found email a bit letter-ish, and SMS was limiting.

[bruce_nyc]

Buck: But email is not slow. It's just as fast as SMS. I think the real reason is that it is a long text format. And people don't have time for that anymore. They don't want to read long messages, and they don't want to write long messages. They just want short message format. Which is exactly what SMS is.... Short Message Service is what SMS stands for, literally.

Rif: I hear ya. However, believe it or not, not everyone has a smartphone yet. Some young and/or poor Thai boys only have an ancient blackberry which is not capable of running these new apps. Many people, especially older people, only have basic "feature phones", not smartphones. So how are you supposed to communicate with them? And here in the US, most people who have smartphones have never even heard of WhatsApp or Line. That makes limiting communication to those apps quite a challenge. :-)

No matter how you look at it, I think we will be dealing with many different communication methods for quite some time. Every time I want to contact someone, I must I think through what their preferred messaging medium is.... It seems like it's getting less convenient all the time. :-)

[rifraf]

For the poor Thai boys with limiting BBs, feature phones only elederly, and most of North America I guess ringing them up, SMS or texting and email remain the order of the day. But I am not trying to communicate with the whole world, just mainly with those I call my circle of family and friends.

My friends in the US and other parts of the world have either Line or WhatsApp on their computers and phones. I send them invitations and they download and install the apps. Some get it on their own and so it goes.

And all the Thais (business and friends) who I communicate with frequently so far have these services as well.

It is mostly with customers that I use email, SMS or voice calls, and Facebook on a daily basis. And even that is changing now as many of them are also beginning to use other forms of communications either personally, or as official accounts.

Using these services simply save a lot of money, improves efficiency, help to keep in touch with people all over the world using multi-media and let you customise how you choose to interact with them. Transitions are a pain but the direction we are going is a good one.

I don't limit communication to only Line and WhatsApp, but they are definitely the way I communicate with over 85% of those in my personal contacts list. In my business contacts list it is the opposite: email and SMS or texting are more commonplace.

[bruce_nyc]

How strange that business communications would be using email and SMS primarily.... and personal communication would be using Line and WhatsApp. I find it very strange that the same technology could not handle both....

I just checked, and although WhatsApp does not have a version for your computer ( http://www.whatsapp.com ), LINE does have a version for Mac or Windows computers ( http://line.naver.jp ). That's interesting ( although we only use Linux Mint, no Mac or Windows ). Also, anyone who has been using WhatsApp for a year now, will be finding out that it is no longer a free app ( see http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/23014681 ). Some of my Thai friends cannot buy an app -- even at $0.99 -- because they don't even have a credit card.

By the way....

Email does exactly what all these new text message apps do..... and does it better..... ( except for three main differences ).

Already, Email can...

send text messages instantly[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
send messages from any type of device to any type of device[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
send and receive messages from a computer and/or a smartphone interchangeably[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
send and receive messages from any email-capable device --- not app or company specific[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
send and receive messages even when you have no internet service --- the messages will conveniently remain in your outbox until the moment you have an internet signal again[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
attach images, audio files, videos, or any type of file[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
have threaded conversations[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
have group conversations[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
all email addresses work with all email addresses globally[/*:m:1ckvjrol]

The three main benefits that the new texting apps have over email...

short message length --- ( you usually cannot send anything much longer than a couple sentences, and people prefer this... thus the popularity of SMS and Twitter, for example )[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
contacts are white-listed --- ( meaning only contacts who already have each other's phone numbers and/or email addresses can communicate... plus you can block people you don't want to hear from any more )[/*:m:1ckvjrol]
push-to-talk --- ( which is an awesome feature, and I have been saying for years that it should be a built-in feature of email, far more convenient than voicemail )[/*:m:1ckvjrol]

The fact that there are a dozen or more of these apps now, and they all have different features, and different people have different ones, and many people don't have any of them, and none of them talk to each other.... means they are not ready for mass usage.

These apps are all about where email was in the early days.... when you had Compuserve Mail, OR Genie Mail, OR whatever mail.... But none of the competing systems could speak to each other. Later, they all slowly got integrated... into the global email system we have now.

You cannot use those apps from your desktop computer.... only your smartphone, and only if you have that app installed. To use them all, you have to have them ALL installed. It's a real pain. If my phone is powered off and it's charging, I can still get emails on my computer... But I cannot get any messages from these apps.

What I predict will happen is...

Somehow old-school Email...... and all of these new Texting Apps will merge..... Maybe there will be a brand new standard altogether..... called ShortMail or something....

All the email would have to do is.... integrate those three features.... Short Message length, White Listed contacts, and Push-to-Talk. Then email could be easy to use and popular again... and every one of these apps could be interchangeable... they could all send and receive messages with each other....

In the meantime, these people have come up with one interesting solution.... see http://three.sentenc.es

I wonder if Google is listening....

[rifraf]

Wow! Some cool links.

Not strange, email requires having another person's address and the other apps only require a phone number. A number of my family and friends (especially Thais) do not have email accounts, but they all have phone numbers.

Also, WhatsApp and Line are user-friendly and make sending and receving multi-media messages quick and easy. Email can be a bit trying at times and just does not feel as sexy, eventhough it is more powerful.

I do wish email apps would come with password protection, though. Having confidential files as attachments exposed on your phone can be worrying to say the least.

And competition and choice are good for us the consumers. Google and Yahoo need a few upstarts out there to keep them on their toes.

[bruce_nyc]

All the apps I know about....

line http://line.naver.jp
whatsapp http://whatsapp.com
tango http://tango.me
wechat http://wechat.com
viber http://viber.com
kakao http://kakao.com
tikl http://tiklapp.com
gtalk http://google.com/talk
skype http://skype.com

:mail1:

[christianpfc]

My experience is similar: some of my Thai friends give me their email, but don't remply; with those who reply, no efficient communication is possible. So I use their email address mainly to access their facebook accounts and contact them on facebook. I have a basic phone, so I can't use all these app (and I don't want another phone - at least not in the near future - and I don't want to use these apps). MSN and skype worked well my my Thai friends (here again email just to add them as friends). I dislike sending SMS (texting takes me so long).

This does not only apply to Thais. I have a German friend, I write him an email with three questions, he answers one question half, that is after I reminded him that I sent an email and ask if he received it. Only way to communicate with him is by phone.

I would say I have an aversion to these apps (and to a lesser extent SMS and phone calls). I have less than one call or SMS per day, which is ok. Some of my Thai friends are permanently online, having their device (whatever it is) beeping at least once per hour. I don't want to end up like this, and I don't want a boyfriend whose attention I have to share with his mobile phone.

I prefer email because I can read and answer messages (that are not time critical, then a call is best) when I have time and I want to.

[Beachlover]

Bruce_NYC... Here's an explanation to the "unexplainable".

You're picking the wrong people, wrong age group and wrong scenario to communicate via e-mail.

1. The only people in my generation who use e-mail regularly are usually professionals who use it for work or business on a regular basis. And even then, don't bother unless you have their work e-mail. E-mails ending in names like "kpmg, pwc or booz"

2. For social stuff, no one uses e-mails unless you know each other fairly well and are trying to organise a group thing.

3. If you want to keep in touch or date them virtually, use whatever app they chat with, like FB, Whatsapp or Skype. E-mail's not really a medium for chatting. Too slow.

Also, if people do give you their e-mail and don't bother responding to anything then it's possible that you're unimportant to them and they might not be interested in you at all... applies to all mediums.

[stevehadders]

Beachlover is spot on ...young people do not use email as communication platform of choice - social media is the way most people choose how to communicate because I guess its multi functional ie chat, message, read what everyone is doing etc. I am no spring chicken (42) but I use only work email, and check my personal account probably once a week, but facebook and linked in daily. I read an article on social media the other week (sorry dont have link to hand) and they predict the continuing decline of email and continued use of social media and sms (from different formats).
Thats the way it is folks!

[Beachlover]

Didn't bother reading the thread before replying earlier so here goes a few comments...


they only want to use something with a very short text message format. ....
Not true... There's no character limit for Whatsapp messages, far as I know. Same for other mediums. SMS's are mostly free these days so no one keeps it under 140 characters anymore.

It's about quicker two-way communication when chatting or discussing something... quicker to sort things like organising drinks with mates or getting to know someone to see if they're a personality match for you. That's why it's better for social stuff.

E-mail's better for business when you have more info to lay out, instructions or a series of points you need to get across. I mainly use e-mails or conference calls for business. I use Skype to organise meetings and get updates, not for substantial exchanges.


and only real-time messaging.
Nah... people still respond to messages later. If not then maybe they're just not interested in chatting to you. I don't reply to messages if I'm in a meeting or having a nice dinner with someone but will reply later when in a cab going home or watching TV on the sofa.

It's also about being able to have conversations with multiple people at the same time while doing other stuff, like catching a cab or brushing your teeth. I can message my mate about where he wants to go for dinner and while I'm waiting for him to think up a place I can message another friend about doing something on the weekend. At the same time, I can be on the phone to a client who happens to talk very slowly and take a lot of time to come up with what he wants to say and telling the cab driver where to go. Less time wasted waiting for people to think and make decisions.


But email is not slow. It's just as fast as SMS. I think the real reason is that it is a long text format. And people don't have time for that anymore. They don't want to read long messages, and they don't want to write long messages.
Again... not true. E-mails are near instant but the interface is clunky. You have to go in, hit reply, type what you want then hit send, then move onto whatever you want to do next. Only worth doing when you need to communicate larger amounts of content. With Whatsapp or SMS, you just go straight in an type what you want.

And it's not that people don't want to write long messages. It's that long messages aren't the best way to communicate for social reasons. Short messages are better for social stuff. Long messages via e-mail are better for business when you have a strategy to outline or a set of instructions you want to send.


If my phone is powered off and it's charging, I can still get emails on my computer...
Why would your phone be off when it's charging? Unless you're asleep and then you wouldn't be in front of your PC.


I don't want a boyfriend whose attention I have to share with his mobile phone.
If you have to share someone's attention with their phone then the problem is not the phone... It's them not knowing how to be present when with someone (or possibly they find you boring).

[netrix]

I sent a fax to a guy I know. Never heard back. hmmph.

[bucknaway]

Just the other day I realized that I don't expect to open my email and see mail from friends or family. It's filled with offers from commercial establishments that I've done business with in the past. It's also filled with junk from websites I've visited but nothing from friends or family. My social friends only want to know where to send the text message to and no one outside of business asks for email addresses anymore.

[MiniMee]

Is this confirmation that you are indeed a 20-something once again Bucky? Or you could at least pass for one?

[bucknaway]

No way! II am just realizing how little I depend on email to stay in touch with my friends and family. I can't remember the last time I sent or received an email from a friend. All our communication is done by way of texting or using a social application on the computer or phone.

Even if I get a voice mail message on my phone, I am in no hurry to listen to it and often forget they are there.

I have to find a way to get my Google voice to work with this new carrier. It use to be that I could go online and google would convert my voicemails to text and sms them to me but this new carrier I have is not working with my google voice account too well.

Am I back in my 20's? No way!
Am I a modern day Tech Whore? Yes... I have to bow my head in shame and admit that I am.

::: Edit ::::
Am I the only one being sexually excited just holding the HTC One Cell Phone?

http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one/

[loke]

Yes I am still logging into my Yahoo mail account daily so I must be old fashioned then....

But if you want to order products or do any job related things , the email still works for me.

But not for personal communication , everyone is online today 24/7 . When we started using email 15 years ago , we were online maybe 1 hour daily so email was the only way we could communicate with each other.

So OP , I think even older people 40's and up understand that it is easier to communicate with mobile apps and facebook.
The only problem is that there are too many apps to choose from , on my new android phone I have maybe 10 apps installed to cover any situation.