22 Dec Email fogeys

Who uses email? According to the New York Times, it’s the same people who “still watch movies on a VCR, listen to vinyl records, and shoot photos on film.”

At left, Comscore, the Internet rating agency, graphs the startling demographic split in email use.

The drop is sharpest among the Internet generation, while email use by those over 55 showed a sharp uptick, perhaps reflecting the fact that more and more, ahem, old people are getting on line.

Total email use is falling too. The Times says the total number of unique US visitors to major e-mail sites like Yahoo and Hotmail peaked in November, 2009, and has since slid 6 percent. Visits by  12- to 17-year-olds fell around 18 percent. The only exception? Visits to Gmail are 10 percent from a year ago.

The trend to texting parallels an earlier noted shift away from phone calls by young people. So why hasn’t someone produced a mobile device whose only function is to send and receive text messages?