3 On Your Side: Is Email Becoming Outdated?
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Will email one day become a thing of the past? A recent study shows the average worker checks e-mail a whopping 74 times a day, but, only 6 percent of teens are using email. As 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan finds, even companies are leaning towards alternate ways of staying connected.
Tech savvy teenager Alex Heston believes email is old fashioned! Between social media and instant messaging, he and his friends have other ways to communicate. He says, "Email is retro. It's like sending a letter through the internet, so if you're trying to uphold a conversation with someone through email. It's a very slow process." Alex's mother Mary, a social media expert, agrees. She says, "There's so many new apps out with so many different social platforms, I can totally picture a day when email becomes obsolete."
Author and productivity expert Mark Hurst isn't convinced email will become entirely a thing of the past, but says the Heston's are on to something. According to Hurst, "Young people today have had unprecedented access to other services beyond just email to communicate with each other. In business people are using new tools to collaborate beyond just email."
Software programs such as Slack let employees keep track of projects through real-time messaging and archives. Asana connects users to an open forum to follow each other's tasks, and those are just a few of the options.
If you need a reason to ditch your email, professor Gloria Mark says her research shows email can increase stress levels. In addition, she says, "Our research shows over and over again that email simply put, puts people in a bad mood." Her studies show when email is cut off, face-to-face contact between employees increased. It was also found that face-to-face contact led to improved moods in the workplace.