By Anthony Schoettle
It would be easy to conclude that with myriad emerging digital communication platforms and devices that email is fast going the way of the land line telephone.
And a recent survey conducted by Creative Strategies, a San Jose-based consumer technology research firm, appears to back that notion up. Survey results found that people under 30 much prefer apps such as Google Docs, Zoom and iMessage to email for work collaboration. Some in Gen Z report “hating” email and are ditching it nearly all together.
But as former Indiana University football coach and ESPN analyst Lee Corso likes to say: “Not so fast my friends.”
Sure, newer platforms and social media have their place in business communications. But there’s a case to be made that email – despite its faults and foibles – is here to stay no matter what the latest generation thinks. And that’s because of some very smart decisions made by generations past during the dawn of email.
The first critical component to email’s longevity is its universality. It wasn’t always this way. In the 1960s and 1970s (yes, there was email back then) email platforms were not universal and that led to cumbersome – as in call the IT department – translation issues. In the early to mid-1980s there were still more than a dozen email addressing systems, which meant emailers couldn’t always communicate with one another. And it’s obviously not much of a system if you can’t get a message through to whoever you want.
But then something uncommon happened. Common sense prevailed, and a standard addressing and messaging transfer system was agreed upon that led to the commonplace format of yourname@domainname.extension.
And since it’s an open standard, it’s free.
While it’s true that Gen Z prefers alternative communication platforms to communicate, most of those are proprietary formats. And history has taught us proprietary formats have a limited shelf life. Raise your hand if you remember when AOL instant messaging was all the rage. Even more recent apps like Skype are going by the wayside and people in their teens and 20s don’t clamor for Facebook the way they did just five years ago.
Does email have its weaknesses? You bet. Spam and email floods can be a serious issue. Even with a good spam filter, it can be a challenge to keep up. In my days as a newspaper reporter, getting 300-plus emails a day was not uncommon.
But the positives of email certainly outweigh the negatives.
Most email programs include tools that allow you to sort messages depending on who sent them, whether the sender is known, or by subject matter. And that helps manage the volume.
In addition to its universality and being free, email has other undeniable strengths. It enables workers to communicate despite work schedules and time zones, an important element in an increasingly global environment. And it is unparalleled in terms of archiving and record keeping.
Those are solid reasons why you’ll likely be using email – no matter your age – for years to come.
Anthony Schoettle is the director of communications for the Indiana Chamber. He started with the Chamber in 2021 after a long career in journalism. He’s won multiple awards for his storytelling ability on a wide range of business topics.
