Email Outperforms Many Online Activities Across Age Groups

See how Email Outperforms Many Online Activities Across Age Groups.

Email has been confirmed as the dominant form of online activity, by the Pew Research Center’s 2010 Generations Online report. This report demonstrates the internet habits across generations.

Email proved to be the single most popular online activity with adults 18 and over. The percentage of web adults who use email shows nearly total saturation.

Also interesting was the 73% of 12-17 year olds using email. “Conventional wisdom” would have us believe that age group is abandoning email in favor of social networking and instant messaging. This stat shows that teens are still quite involved in using email.

Teens engage in email usage more than all of the "youth activities" which are generally assumed to be the most popular in this age group. In fact, from the 93% of 12 to 17-year-olds who reported they go online, 73% were doing so to send or read email.

Amazingly, social networking is tied with email usage among teens - with both activities scoring 73%. Instant messaging's penetration is still lagging far behind email. Email was used more often than IM in each and every age group.

Right after email usage among all adult age ranges was search, but the universal third most popular online activity was not shopping, reading news or watching videos as many might suspect: it is obtaining health info! If your brand is considering a new vector or a different email campaign direction, you might want to consider that health-related subjects are hot!

For visual learners (video): Email Dominates Each Generations’ Online Activity.

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