Younger teens

One of the earliest studies of the messaging habits of young people was done in 2005 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington, showing that nearly half of 1,100 young people aged 12 to 17 preferred chatting via instant messaging to e-mail, according to phone surveys done in late 2004. Despite this trend, they said they still used e-mail more than instant messaging, and Pew has not done a comprehensive follow-up survey to track any changes.

However, one of the Pew study's authors, Amanda Lenhart, said in an e-mail interview that Pew has done a number of in-depth focus-group interviews since 2005 with the 12- to 17-year-old group showing that e-mail is still used by them for longer communication about subjects that are complex, while IM and text "are more like conversations, better for talking with peers." She said there is a "mix of individual preferences" that are partly determined by the type of communication device a teen is using.

In other words, Lenhart indicated that younger teens seem to be similar to other age groups in using messaging tools that fit the variety of their communications.

Some recent market analysis examines whether social networking communications might become a substitute for e-mail, which would be a major concern for Internet service providers running e-mail sites such as Hotmail and Yahoo mail. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that some Internet service providers are starting to incorporate social network functions into their e-mail systems to avoid losing network traffic, which is the basis of maintaining healthy banner advertising rates.

As recently as NovEMBER 6, Hitwise Intelligence in London noted that social networks are overtaking Web mail, at least in the UK, by a thin margin. Hitwise said the top 25 social networks, which includes Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, accounted for 5.17% of all UK Internet visits by the end of September, compared with 4.98% for e-mail services such as Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

"This confirms that social networks are starting to eat into the Web-based e-mail providers' dominance of the Internet messaging market," analyst Robin Goad wrote.

Analysts said they don't know of similar research in the U.S., but cellular service providers are "wising up to the new forms of communications," Reiter said. Although US wireless operators took a long time compared with European operators to offer text messaging, they have been offering instant messaging options for several years. New QWERTY keypads and even the virtual keyboard on the iPhone have made typing and sometimes "thumbing" easy for users sending short IMs or longer e-mails, he noted.

In fact, mobile e-mail will be popular for some time even if the messages are very short, added Tole Hart, an analyst at Gartner. That's partly because mobile e-mail can be readily recorded for long-term storage. Recently, carriers began to offer Facebook on wireless devices, including the BlackBerry, Reiter added. "E-mail isn't dying, but other forms are gaining in importance," he said.

And now, carriers are beginning to offer Facebook on wireless devices, including the BlackBerry, Reiter added. "E-mail isn't dying, but other forms are gaining in importance," he said.