Dive Brief:
- Many of today's students see e-mail as an antiquated and boring technology, preferring social media and text messaging instead.
- Some students don't even know they have a university e-mail account, as Dr. Cedrick May discovered in a junior-level class at the University of Texas at Arlington, but Campus Computing Project research shows that students at elite Ivy League institutions may be more likely to use their accounts.
- Despite this evidence, 98% of students using the learning management system Canvas elected to have important messages delivered via e-mail.
Dive Insight:
We're not saying you should rush to "friend" your students on Facebook, but this shift in communication preferences is a trend worth keeping an eye on—even if there isn't definitive proof that students are indeed abandoning e-mail. This may be of particular interest to colleges' career services staffs, who will need to reinforce the importance of effective communication via e-mail given the number of companies that use it during the application process.