Email is the new Pony Express—and it’s time to put it down

Among 18-24 year olds, time spent on webmail has declined 34% in the last year alone, and nearly 50% since 2010. As HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes writes, Gen Y may be onto something. Once championed as a tool that bridged boundaries of location and time zone, email has now reached the point of promoting unproductivity. Sifting through hundreds of email a day takes the average corporate user 2 hours and 14 minutes  — and it reinforces a linear (rather than collaborative) workflow. So, what’s next? Social media, of course. What Holmes envisions is a workplace that communicates through Facebook-like message boards that are centralized, updated in real time and allow great ideas to be shared easily and instantly.