A study into the online behaviour of Gen Y by the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN) has found that that email and texting proves to be more valued than social media.

The survey was conducted with over 200 panelists aged between 18-24 and asked them which of the three they would least like to give up for one week. Only 9% said social media, compared to 26% each for texting and email. Magazines finished lower on the scale, with 7% of respondents saying they wouldn’t like to give them up for one week.

This is surprising when compared to the result in the same survey that respondents spent an average of 33 hours per month on social networks, compared to 31 hours for email. Though more time is spent on social networks, it’s evident that email is still considered one of the most important or necessary channels of communication. While this may seem surprising, I would like to have seen the survey conducted within a slightly different age range than 18-24 year olds. 18-21 year olds are likely to still be in education and I think this may skew the figures somewhat. I would imagine that social networks would have finished a little higher up the scale for students, especially as many tutors use social media tools to share course material etc..

The survey shows that many view social media as a luxury – happy to spend more of their time on it but choosing texting and email as more important methods of communication.

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