Email is for old people--literally.
Email use dropped 59 percent among users aged 12-17, as well as 8 percent overall, according to ComScore's 2010 Digital Year in Review. Users between 18-54 are also using email less, though among those 55 and older, email actually saw an upswing.
Young people are turning to social networks to communicate instead--the activity accounts for 14 percent of time spent online in the U.S.. That growth is fueled largely by Facebook, which has only continued to expand its reach in the past year--it accounts for 10 percent of page views in the U.S. and saw 38 percent growth in American users to 153.9 million. Total time spent on the site went up 79 percent to 49.4 billion minutes.
Facebook is only one part of the social networking picture. Nine out of every ten online users visited social networking sites by the end of 2010. LinkedIn grew by 30 percent to 26.6 million users, as Twitter grew 18 percent to 23.6 million users, and Tumblr saw 168 percent growth to 6.7 million users. Struggling MySpace saw a decrease of 26 percent, dropping to 50 million users.
If Facebook's revamped messaging system catches on, Gmail might actually have something to worry about.