I use email. I am 'old people'

I look forward to reading the trend analysis reports of technology use of tweens and teens by GenDigital - except when it makes me feel old.

The report results are from March 2008, but just recently published show teens and "tweens" are reading less, instead spending more time surfing the web, playing games, and watching TV.

That doesn't surprise most technology using teachers who see it on a daily basis. What does surprise me though is the description that 'e-mail is for old people' and 'e-mail is, like, so yesterday'. I guess I should have figured that out when they first said it two years ago.

Another indicator worth noting is that wireless phone ownership is up from 65 percent last year to 73 percent among teens, and 26 percent of tweens also owning a cell/wireless phone. Text messaging (no email here folks)is cited as the primary activity above actually talking to people.

Just a couple of thoughts - what are schools doing to integrate the communication tools that 73% of your teens are showing up with? How do you effectively go about banning something that ubiquitous?