In South Korea, email is for old people

Want to feel old? A survey of a middle, high school, and college students in South Korea found that over two-thirds of students there rarely or never use email and supposedly young people are starting to think of email as something overly formal that you use only for business purposes or to communicate with your less tech savvy parents or grandparents who are still stuck in the Nineties (when email was king). For them it's all about text and instant messaging, and by comparison, even email seems like an incredibly slow way to communicate. Do they even have postal service in Korea anymore?

[Via SmartMobs]

[dJsLiM @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

Ha Ha Ha! Yeah, we have postal service. :) Back in the mid/late 90s, in the midst of E-mails, people longed for Snail Mail for that added personal touch, but now E-mail has taken the space of Snail Mail and Text/Instant messaging has become the new e-mail. As much as this is cool in a technological way, it is a bit scary in the social context of human relationship, ain't it?

[ebp2k2 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

re:1
another drawback is people hardly write "complete" sentences anymore, especially bad for younger people still learning to read and write...

I've noticed as of late Koreans using abbreviations beyond necessity... it's getting rediculous, they are abbreviating EVERYTHING... sometimes it's hard not to interrupt a conversation and ask what these 'words' mean... a definite by-product of txt/im messaging..

[birostick @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

wht r u tlkin bout? i don't cur thngs shrt..

i know it is horrible how everything is getting shorter... and people will not learn proper english that way

but then again what is proper english anyways?

[Justin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

Must be nice having such a reliable SMS system over there. Still tons of hangups here on every carrier - messages taking hours to get received, etc. Compared to SK, JP, even most European countries, the US cellular systems are _horrible_. CDMA, GSM, doesn't matter, all crap.

[Walter @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

It is very rare that we get calls that don't go through or hangups. If someone is not picking up, its either because they are dissing you or they are away from their phone.

[Cosine @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

That's already the case here, I can't remember the last time I sent a personal email to anyone but I IM all day and send at least 25 sms's a week.

Cos

[dJsLiM @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

On the subject of abbreviations, it's borderline ludicrous... but then again, I'm 27, not 13... When I'm conversing with Korean people who are in their early 20s/ late teens I feel the person on the other end is not particulary interested in the conversation at all, as the responses are so pithy (i.e. 2 characters). That may either be this insecure male in his late 20s trying very hard to empathize (and failing miserably) or maybe I am just plain boring (and I should wake up and smell the coffee). I suppose hoping for a warm human conversatio over IM is a rather high expectation to begin with.

[Josh @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

>> I suppose hoping for a warm human conversatio over IM is a rather high expectation to begin with.

It shouldn't be. I take the time to write complete sentances and words, for the most part. It only takes, what, another 30 seconds to write out a complete sentance that tells whoever you're talking to that you care enough not to degrade into bouts of "OMG HI2U A/S/L?1?!!!?!" and other such. The world isn't going to change in 30 seconds. Show some bloody respect.

[pjsnyc @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

and now with sprint, you can not only sms people with short text messages, but you can VOICE SMS people! ahhh, gotta love the evolution of gadgetry and communication.

[jc @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

voice SMS? that's pretty amazing.

now what they need to come up with next is something that's like voice SMS, except you can talk back to the other person, and it's in realtime. that would be really cool.