Email Is For Dinosaurs in South Korea

A South Korean newspaper is predicting the death of email.

A poll conducted […] on over 2,000 middle, high school and college students in Gyeonggi and Chungcheong provinces in October revealed that more than two-thirds of the respondents said, “I rarely use or don’t use e-mail at all.”

It seems email just isn’t fast enough for these wippersnappers.

…it’s impossible to tell whether an addressee has received a message right away and replies are not immediately forthcoming. […] “The new generation hate agonizing and waiting and tend to express their feelings immediately,” said Professor Lee. “The decline of email is a natural outcome reflecting such characteristics of the new generation.”

Engadget, which tipped me off, asks “Do they even have postal service in Korea anymore?”

What about statistics? The country’s top webmail service saw a greater than 20% decline year over year this October, while the nation’s No. 1 communication firm saw SMS transmissions skyrocket over 40% up in the same period.

Thanks also to SmartMobs for the info.