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Every once in a while, I’ll find a story about Justin Bieber or Twilight that I think would interest my 12-year-old daughter. I click the “share” button, type in her e-mail address, and hit send. Then I text her to tell her that she has an e-mail she should open.
My almost-teenager demonstrates what a new study from the Pew Research Center confirms: youth ages 12-17 aren’t using e-mail anymore. Headlines last week focused on the hundreds of texts that teens send daily, but I found their lack of e-mail use even more fascinating. The study showed that 58 percent of teens text, while only 11 percent use e-mail. In fact, more teens are using landlines (33 percent) than e-mail. Is e-mail the new snail mail?
One in three teens sends more than 100 text messages a day, or 3,000 texts a month. Any parent without an unlimited texting plan has found that out the hard way when the bill arrives. I text, but mostly to tell my husband where I am or ask my daughter a question. For teens, texting is a remote conversation. They are talking to each other as though they’re in the same room. How many phrases do you use during an in-person conversation with a friend or co-worker? Add those up, and you’ve got your explanation of why kids send hundreds of texts a day.
When you understand how teens are using their cell phones, it’s easy to see why e-mail isn’t attractive. It’s too slow, and it’s not easy to get on a cell phone – a concept that’s critical to communicating successfully with the 12-17 age group. If your message can’t be delivered via technology available to most cell phones, teens aren’t going to pay attention.
A successful campaign directed at middle- and high-school audiences requires up-to-the-minute audience research. Teen preferences change so rapidly that this week’s Pew study could be outdated in a few months. Trust me, when my daughter does take the time to open my e-mails about what I think are her obsessions of the moment, she usually informs me that “those people aren’t even cool anymore.”
