Outside of work, SMS and instant messaging are fast becoming the writing tools of choice. Indeed, South Korea - that crystal ball of all our digital tomorrows - has even seen a report that many teenagers have stopped using it altogether. "It's for old people," they say.
The poll, taken recently in Seoul of more than 2,000 middle, high school and college students, revealed that over two-thirds rarely or don't use email at all.
Korea's digital generation is way ahead of even the Japanese in new technology uptake: 50% of South Koreans are signed up to their version of Facebook, called Cyworld, which took off almost a decade before other social networking sites. For most South Koreans, email is fit only for addressing the old, or for business and formal missives.
Even those in their 30s like Dr Youngmi Kim, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, says she doesn't use it much when communicating with fellow Koreans. "I use my Cyworld mini homepage to communicate among Korean close friends. [Cyworld] is faster and it can be used both for private and public use," she says.
It's a global trend, but more pronounced in South Korea, says Tomi Ahonen, communications consultant and co-author of a new book, Digital Korea. "Korean young adults put it so well. Email is simply outdated and not used between friends and colleagues. The only people you would use mobile email with are the older generation at work. Email? It's so 90s."
