Is Email Dead?

"Who uses e-mail anymore?" I was surprised to hear myself say this when a friend offered to send me an address. After all, an email meant that I would have to retrieve the message and copy and paste the info into my address book...OH! THE EFFORT INVOLVED! At least with a text, the message would just pop right up for me--no signing in or buttons to tap to retrieve it--and who knows what I could accomplish with those extra milliseconds!

Frankly, I can't remember the last time I signed into Yahoo! to actually write a letter-y email to a friend because:

• I already know the answer to "How are you?" and more! I've been following friends' status updates for the past two years and I know that Allison's cat kept her up all night. She's tired! (She didn't have the heart to kick him out of bed.)
• If you need info and you need it quick, it's less of a burden on everyone if you just text it. Society has finally accepted that no niceties are needed.
• Again, I already know how they're doing. And those pictures from last night are already online.

Point is, people are texting. People are instant messaging. People are "facebooking" (yes, it's a verb now too) or tweeting their statuses all over the place. IF I do send a letter-y type email it's actually through Facebook, which is technically a "direct message." Facebook has become my "email client" replacing both Yahoo! and Gmail for the social emails I once sent. The other two now function as inboxes for my business transactions and professional correspondences.

This begs the question, is email as we once knew it dead? Or social niceties?