How my stepdaughter communicated online back in 2005-2006

she would have been a high school freshman at the time.

my TT post from july 29, 2006

http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/comments.pl/16/2793

Last winter, I asked my stepdaughter how she communicates with friends. Results with order not indicating importance:
- talking on the cell phone
- text messaging on the cell phone
- Internet instant messaging
- blogs and/or message boards (mainly MySpace)
- PhotoBucket.com for photo sharing

I asked, "What about e-mail?" She said her and friends rarely use e-mail. That was news to me.

yes, back in 2005-2006, email was supposedly dying off, but the Blackberry probably kept it going for businesses, and now today in 2014, email is still going strong for the right and the wrong reasons.

More from my July 2006 Toledo Talk post.

July 19, 2006 article Social Networks are Killing Email

I recently talked with a father of a MySpace user who said that he tried to email his daughter using regular email and she never responded. He asked her why and she said, “I use MySpace for email. Send me mail there”. So he created an account and now he messages her there. Wow.

This is a profound change in the way we use the Web and build software. Email is now a commodity feature: we can almost assume that we’ll always have some sort of messaging system no matter what software we use. Messaging puts the social in social software…

Some weeks back, I read an article about young people in their early 20's entering the workforce and asking what is up with all the e-mail being used in the workplace for communication. The young workers are wanting to know where are the internal blogs, wikis, chat rooms, and instant messages.

My stepdaughter has used some or all of the Internet tools listed above when her study group or class workgroup worked on assignments. Collaboration. The kids forced to use libary or school computers after school, will they be prevented from collaborating on workgroup projects?

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my other comment:

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"Sad that face to face wasnt included."

I should have said in my comment that I asked my stepdaughter what technology she and her buds use to communicate with. The teens still have plenty of face to face communication. The fact is, the kids today are far more "connected" communication-wise with each other than in the past. I don't know how they can stand that much communication with each other.

And here's something else. It's much easier to maintain friendships with a greater number of people digitally, especially over long distances, than via face to face meetings.

"Where I work, folks communicate so much via email that they'll send one to someone sitting so close they can see them at their desk, yet they still just type a msg and hit 'enter'. MANY times misunderstandings have happened that are only solved by a face to face sit down, which if they'd have gotten up and walked over their in the first place, or at least picked up the phone, it wouldnt have happened to begin with."

That's a workflow problem, not an e-mail problem. Don't blame e-mail. The problem is users or companies are not willing to try other software, or the other software option is too complex, which makes e-mail the fallback option.

Until the workplace users can be convinced that something better is available, they will stick with what they know, with what works good enough, and what's simple to use. E-mail was a good choice 10 to 20 years ago, but better options have been around for a few years now, and the kids are all over it.

It's common today for workplaces to use e-mail as their collaboration or project management tool, which is a hideous software option to use. The reason why so many use e-mail in the workplace is because it's so damn easy. The network protocol that defines e-mail is called Simple Mail Transport Protocol.

How many steps does it take to send an e-mail? Compose -> To: -> Subject: (optional but preferred) -> Message -> Send. That's it. Attachments, folders, filters, etc. are extra features. And sending an e-mail is done on one screen or one form and not flipping through multiple screens with tons of fields to fill out.

I worked with a couple pieces of software that didn't get adopted well because of their complexity. One was a portal software and the other was a content management system. One took about a dozen steps to post a document, and the other took over 20 steps. Naturally, both were extremely expensive and way to confining for my open thinking. A simple, free open source wiki that could be customized would have been a far, far better option. Throw in some blogging tools, and a nice search engine, and the app would have had a much better chance of succeeding.

If it took 10 to 20 different screens to send an e-mail, it wouldn't be used as much.

Other software tools would do a better job at knowledge management, project management, and collaboration, but if these other tools are not as simple to use as e-mail, then the other tools will get rejected by the users. With e-mail, a user begins with a blank page that has few if any restrictions. Same with wiki or blog software.

Blogging is the easiest way to publish a document, and wikis may be the easiest way to organize information. How many steps does it take to create a blog post? Compose -> Title -> Message -> Submit. As easy as e-mail. Categories, tags, RSS feeds, trackbacks, etc. are extra features.

Creating a new wiki page basically consists of: Edit an existing article -> add a wiki link that points to an article that doesn't exist -> save the edited article -> click on the new wiki link -> enter text into the blank page -> save the new article. The software automatically updates the first edited article to point to the new article.

Adding a link for this new article to some other article consists of: edit -> add wiki link that points to the newly created article -> save.

WYSIWYG ability added to wiki/blog software is making these apps more accepted in the workplace by those who do not want to learn HTML or some other markup language. I've never understood the reluctance by most adults in the workplace to learn basic HTML markup. Yet, my stepdaughter and her buds are typing HTML commands to customize their MySpace pages, and many bloggers have learned to work with HTML and CSS.

But many adults in the workplace prefer to use MS Word to type up a simple document, and then send it as an e-mail attachment to a bunch of people. That is so yesterday. They could have easily formatted that same document in basic HTML text on a blog or a wiki, and then send the link or do nothing and wait for everyone's RSS readers to update to show the new document. Instead of copies of the document going all over the place via Word and e-mail, only one would exist in a database. And the editing and collaboration can be done on that one document with every change saved in case an older version needs re-instated. Or the discussion could take place in the comment or talk section for that document. And tags or categories and a search engine would make retrieving the document eaiser. One taxonomy for all the documents would exist, instead of everyone storing e-mails in their own folder structure.

And when a new person joins the team, you point them to the wiki/blog app, instead of sending them old e-mail threads or handing them printouts. And when a person leaves, that person's contributions are still in the database-backed blog/wiki app and not lost in that person's e-mail inbox when their PC or laptop is reformatted. You shouldn't have to search through old printouts in a file cabinet or through someone else's e-mail collection to find information about a project from a year ago.

Companies that have started using wiki-based software or something similar have had a dramatic decrease in the number of e-mails sent. It's not a replacement for e-mail, but a better solution to managing information.

Too much e-mail and too many face-to-face meetins are a drain in the workplace. When today's kids enter the workplace over the next five to ten years, I can't see them collaborating with Word doc attachments in e-mail. If that's what the company uses, the kids will work somewhere else, probably at a company that has adopted the social software tools the kids are used to, and these tools will have enabled the company to beat the company that is stuck using e-mail and face-to-face meetings. I believe, workers can become more productive by making use of some of the tools the kids are using for their own communication and collaboration.

"Do me a favor and talk to some sysadmins/netadmins and the people who run computer labs."

What kinds of computer labs are you talking about? This issue is about public grade schools and high schools and public libraries.

"I do not agree with the government being involved, but man, if you'd ask the admins what's actually going on, you'd learn that entirely too many people are screwing off on MySpace or with some IM program or stupid Flash games rather than using the computers for something slightly more legitimate (news, research, completing assignments)."

As I mentioned above, my stepdaughter uses MySpace, IM, or whatever to collaborate on-line when working on group assignments.

In the old days, they'd have to meet face-to-face. Why choose that inefficient method if the collaboration can be done on-line? From wherever they can get an Internet connection, many knowledge workers work for a company located hundreds or thousands of miles away because so many cheap, easy communication tools exist. And so it is with today's students, except the kids are not relying on e-mail.

Just because kids today communicate differently than adults doesn't mean that what the kids are doing is wrong.

Adults and kids have been screwing off on the Internet long before MySpace began. How many adults at work are shopping on eBay? Today, it's MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. Tomorrow it might be something else. And if the people weren't screwing off on the Internet, they'd be doing it somewhere else like playing video games on a console.

"I've got to admit I really do not see why myspace needs to be accessed by students while they are at school."

Most likely, MySpace is already blocked at the school. Look above at the comment by the teacher:

"Currently, schools have Acceptable Use policies which detail how they expect school computers to be used. This includes instructions that school computers are not to be used for pornography, commercial enterprise, etc. Every school that I am aware of blocks Instant Messaging, Myspace, Xanga, and Facebook."

The problem is not just with MySpace but with the wording of H.R. 5319 that could mean other worthwhile, educational websites could be blocked at the school. As the teacher believes:

"This COULD extend blocking to other commercial social networking websites and chat rooms including: Blogs - I collaborate on a supportblogging wiki is that is a great resource for educational blogs. All commercial blogs such as blogger (which I use) and wordpress will probably be blocked. Many of the great educational blogs listed on supportblogging will also be blocked."

And the problem with blocking MySpace at public libraries is what about those kids who live in homes without computers? How can they "hang" with their friends on-line and use these communication tools to collaborate on assignments? So let's put these kids back on the street where they can hang out and have all kinds of face-to-face meetings.

"MSN made their chat service a subscription service to avoid some of these pitfalls. Yahoo also revamped their chat programs and now doesn't allow the creation of rooms by the users."

That's right. Get government out of the way. From the news story that started this thread:

"In a statement earlier this month, a representative of MySpace stressed that the company has taken steps this year to assuage concerns among parents and politicians. It has assigned some 100 employees, about one-third of its work force, to deal with security and customer care, and hired Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam, a former Justice Department prosecutor, as its chief security officer."

The technology providers will do a better job at addressing the issue than government. Government needs to explain why some repeat sex offenders walk around freely and later end up committing a more serious crime.

The problem here is a bunch of "old" (35 and over) adults in government have no idea what they are dealing with. They should pay attention to how their kids or grandkids or someone else's kids are using technology. It's fascinating to watch how teenagers communicate today. And the kids in Asia are probably even more advanced.

What's amazing is that MySpace has over 70 million users, and yet, the site only began a couple of years or so ago. I bet most adults assume MySpace has been around for many years. And despite a clunky, and maybe even an ugly user interface, MySpace continues to show growth.

MySpace's incredible growth will naturally have some built-in problems that the company is working on. Government doesn't need to be involved. Parents need to be involved with or without MySpace.
posted by jr at 01:05 P.M. EST on Sat Jul 29, 2006 #

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#email