Teen Entrepreneurs Say Email is for Work Only

Fri Jul 20, 2007 6:12PM EDT

See Comments (749)

We've heard about how email is yesterday's communication for today's teens before, but here are some pretty compelling comments from young entrepreneurs at the center of teen online life about how teens use tech to communicate. They're from Cnet's Stefanie Olsen's report from the YPulse Mashup 2007 conference in San Francisco.

• Emo Girl Talk podcast host Martina Butler says she only uses email for business and to win sponsors.

• If teens send emails to each other, most only do it via Facebook or another social network.

• Teens text. Period. Asheem Badshah, the teen-aged president of Scriptovia.com, an essay-sharing web site, says: "For me even IM died, and was replaced by text messaging. Facebook will replace e-mail for communicating with certain people."

• Catherine Cook, co-founder of MyYearbook.com, said she still emails some friends, but she sends thousands of text messages a month: "I don't know any teen who doesn't have a phone with them all the time."

Hearing it straight from teen entrepreneurs gives parents a look into what they can expect from their own teens. (Thanks to Anne Collier at NetFamilyNews for the link.) How are your teens communicating most these days?

LINKS: Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead [Cnet]
Finding the teen gene [Yodel Anecdotal] 

Related: Fast-Growing myYearbook.com Gets $4.1 million
Do U nEd txt hlp? 
Summer's Here, and the Textin' is Tempting 

 

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Comments on Teen Entrepreneurs Say Email is for Work Only

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  • 26 Posted by ninochinny on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:39PM EDT Report Abuse

    i so agree with this article. i've only sent about 10 emails all year. i keep in touch with friends via facebook.

  • 27 Posted by hp_ayala on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    p.s. this is so not accurate? where are ur sources and data??? edit :D hahahaha

  • 28 Posted by sjponder3 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:25PM EDT Report Abuse

    I'm a teen and I use email. Granted most of the time teens use IM more, but it's still used. I can see how people think that we don't, but we do. My friends email each other (though not often considering we fit the typical teen age girl sterotype calling each other) and it is a great way to communicate with everyone I know.

  • 29 Posted by savvysearch on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:06PM EDT Report Abuse

    I always thought text messaging was for die-hard, can't-live-without-contact type teens. Texting is immediate by takes so much more effort.

  • 30 Posted by kelseylevins on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:49PM EDT Report Abuse

    wow... most of my friends have like 10 emails a day or maybe even less, and im a preteen i am on my email and instant messenger 24/7 and i dont text or tlk on the phone if i do it is like for 10 mins and thats all soo.. i have no clue wut ur tlkin bout.:D

  • 31 Posted by bhbaybro2007 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:06PM EDT Report Abuse

    OK. Im 18 years old. Everyone I know uses myspace & facebook & text messaging. The only time i get emails are the ones informing me i have a message on myspace. And of course the usual junk email and the occasional important email from some long lost relative telling me my great uncle jose died. Of course, the value of importance of that email would not lie in the fact that my uncle whom i have never met before died, but rather someone in my hick family is named jose. Anyways, I have friends from europe, new york, cali, texas, and many other places and its the same everywhere. Email is truely, for the most part, obsolete in our generation.

  • 32 Posted by azcardsfan07 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:00PM EDT Report Abuse

    E-Mail is gone. I use it to send reports to my teachers and that's about it. IMing, Myspace and text messaging are what's responsible I never got e-mail and never will

  • 33 Posted by simhdog on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:23PM EDT Report Abuse

    thats a bull----- story only nerds communicate via "facebook"

  • 35 Posted by hotsaucezee on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:20PM EDT Report Abuse

    I'm a teen and I don't usually text message for my communication. I usually use IM or MySpace. I do use Email to send pictures to my friends but that's about it. I guess I'm not on either one of the sides here. xD I use email for pictures and I don't text message because of the cost. .

  • 36 Posted by dmitryseliv on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:45PM EDT Report Abuse

    It seems somebody trying to get more attention to the text messaging services. I don't understand why exactly they concentrating on teens but I guess it's mostly because they have more free time on a hand then adults. 70% of features my cellphone has I never use even some of them pretty cool but as far as getting by every day they pretty much useless just the same my 4x4 I drive every day but never use it. Cheers, DS

  • 37 Posted by gameguy6700 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:05PM EDT Report Abuse

    I'm 19 and I hardly text message. Maybe I'm already old fashioned, but I don't see the point in spending money to achieve the same thing that a phone call or email could (though I do still use texting for when someone texts me first). That said, I do use email almost exclusively for business these days, but that's a more of a side effect of me living in a dorm and thus only having to take a three minute walk at worst to another dorm building to talk to a friend.

  • 38 Posted by tres_passe on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    I know the only way I talk to my friends is through Facebook, and that the only way we'll ever make plans is through texting...I had to switch to unlimited just because my friends use it that much to keep in contact with each other.

  • 39 Posted by kaelatodd on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:46PM EDT Report Abuse

    Who cares about how people comunicate!As long as the other person gets the message on time. Speaking of emails...

  • 40 Posted by katannahs on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:47PM EDT Report Abuse

    i agree with twixmix...i text a lot but i also use email. and i think they WAAAY overexaggerated. they made it sound like every teenager is superficial and every single one of us has a phone and needs to text like we need to breathe. i know plenty of kids who dont have phones and others who do but dont text..

  • 41 Posted by bracketracer2000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:12PM EDT Report Abuse

    Ahhhhh, those hip teens!!! So much smarter than the adults once again!!!

  • 42 Posted by abyssinianrose07 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:44PM EDT Report Abuse

    who the heck wants to take 15 minutes to type in a text message anyways.

  • 44 Posted by adrian.keys on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:46PM EDT Report Abuse

    Yes...what's this all about. If I did not know better I would think the post was written by someone with a text-messaging agenda...

  • 45 Posted by cimmette on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:25PM EDT Report Abuse

    Well I used to text online friends a lot, but now I'm 18 and I can't afford to text on my cell phone anymore so it's back to MySpace and Instant messaging...

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