Last week, while I was shuttling my 12-year-old to what felt like her 500th dance class of the day, I was also leaving a voicemail for a friend. You know, multitasking like a pro. “Hey, it’s me. Just saw your email. Call me.” Quick and straightforward, right?
Suddenly, from the backseat, my daughter bursts out laughing. I glance in the rearview mirror to see her giggling, but her focus is glued to her phone. What’s she looking at? A group chat with her camp buddies? A funny TikTok? Another recap of her favorite show? “Ugh, Mom!” she exclaims, finally lifting her gaze to meet mine through the mirror. “Only old people use email!”
And there it is.
I can still vividly remember the day I got my first email account. It was 1994; I had just graduated from journalism school and landed my first gig as an editor at a sports magazine. Email was this exciting, revolutionary tool. We spent every spare moment writing and responding to messages from colleagues and the few friends lucky enough to have office email addresses. It was our lifeline for sharing jokes, discussing last night’s episode of Melrose Place, and planning after-work hangouts. Email was everything—if your company didn’t use it, well, good luck!
Fast forward to today, and email is more of a hassle than a help. Two decades of signing up for newsletters and promotions have cluttered my inbox with over 10,000 unread messages—updates I couldn’t care less about, reminders for events I’ll never attend. Sifting through this digital junk in search of one important message has become a tedious chore I dread tackling each day. Click open inbox, scroll endlessly, sigh deeply, click close.
I’m not alone in this sentiment. A recent article by Alex Reed in Inc. predicts that email will become obsolete by 2020. “There are already signs that businesses are shifting away from email as their main form of digital communication,” he notes. “We have so many alternatives now. Texting, Twitter DMs, Facebook messages, and chat platforms are all vying for our attention.”
Reed elaborates, saying email has turned into a black hole. “Responses are slow or non-existent. Conversations get tangled in multiple threads, making it impossible to follow. Spam filters are overly aggressive. We waste hours each week trying to clear out the noise.” Will our kids be the ones to solve this communication conundrum? At ages 12 and 9, mine have already realized that texting, Facebook messaging, or using Snapchat is far more efficient than email. And this trend is creeping into workplaces too, with companies exploring more streamlined internal communication tools like Campfire and Slack (which we utilize here at Home Insemination Kit). Is this the future? Are we clinging to email simply because it’s familiar, and now that we’re “older,” we resist change?
When my kids were born, I hurried to snag them Gmail addresses using their first and middle names—no random numbers or underscores needed. How clever, I thought at the time! Now I can’t help but wonder if they’ll ever actually use them. For more insights on the evolving world of communication, check out our other posts, like this one on intracervical insemination.
In summary, email seems to be losing its relevance, especially among younger generations. As communication methods continue to evolve with the rise of social media and instant messaging, it raises the question of whether we will continue to cling to our old habits or adapt to the new landscape.