ComScore Says You Don't Got Mail: Web Email Usage Declines, 59% Among Teens!
In introducing his messaging platform last November Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said one of the primary motivations behind Messages product strategy was that teenagers have given up on email, “High school kids don't use email, they use SMS a lot.
Context & Ripple Effects
The 'email is dying' argument has been building for years — Slate ran a piece declaring "The Death of E-Mail" back in November 2007, and last month comScore's own data showed web-based email declining in the U.S. even as mobile email usage rose. What was anecdote and trend-line now has a headline number: a 59% drop in web email usage among teens.
The figure lands as direct validation for Facebook, which launched its Messages platform in November with Mark Zuckerberg explicitly framing the product around the claim that high school kids had given up on email in favor of SMS. A measurement firm independently confirming the behavior shift gives that product strategy its evidence base.
First-order effects
- Webmail operators lose their fastest-churning demographic: comScore's data says teen engagement with browser-based email collapsed 59%, so ad inventory and page views tied to young users on those services shrink immediately.
- Facebook's Messages bet gets external confirmation — the platform was designed on exactly the premise Zuckerberg stated, that teens communicate via SMS and social messaging rather than email.
Second-order effects
- Email providers must decide whether to chase teens onto mobile clients or cede the cohort — comScore's finding that mobile email is rising while web email falls suggests the retention play is device-side, not portal-side.
- Messaging competitors face pressure to match a rival whose flagship messaging product is now backed by third-party usage data, forcing SMS-adjacent features into social products aimed at young users.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across cohorts, communication infrastructure bifurcates by generation: email persists as a formal/older-user channel while real-time messaging and social platforms absorb interpersonal traffic, reshaping where attention and advertising dollars concentrate.
- Measurement firms become the referees of these platform wars — comScore-style cohort data increasingly determines which product strategies get funded and which incumbents are written off.
The trend: Teen communication is migrating off web-based email toward SMS and social messaging platforms, turning generational usage data into the decisive evidence in platform competition.