by Katie Lamborn

Email may die out within the decade - according to a Kent university professor.

Youngsters are now opting for Twitter and Facebook to reach a larger number of people in one fell swoop.

Social anthropologist Professor David Zeitlyn at the University of Kent at Canterbury conducted research on the UK’s internet habits on behalf of TalkTalk.

It seems people in their teens and early 20s don’t like being stuck at a desk so prefer to keep in the loop with Instant Messaging, supplemented with text messages when they are out and about.

Email is going out of style with 15- 24 year olds: 86 per cent of the age group use email compared to 98 per cent of people aged 65 or over.

Mark Schmid from TalkTalk says:

“Increasingly people want to send quick, short messages reaching many people in one go, and there are now better ways of doing that than via email. Based on the trends we’re seeing now, email could well be on its last legs by the end of the next decade.”