internet – E-mail tool to “talk to old people”

Guo Liang, China’s most prominent internet researcher, noted with amazement that more than 60 percent of the internet users in China did not use email, once the most prominent and sticky feature of the whole internet. (His latest report is unfortunately still not available.)
The renowned Pew internet and American Life project has studied on the teen-life at the internet in the US and found that especially the youngest users of the internet are developing a preference for IM over email. 75% of the internet users between 12 and 17 years old use IM. While email is still used by most, they say they prefer IM to communicated with friends.

“Teens who participated in focus groups for this study said that they view email as something you use to talk to ‘old people’, institutions, or to send complex instructions to large groups.”

Since the internet in China is more dominated by the young and very young, this kind of shifts from email to IM might go faster and will be more profound than in other internet communities.