Couldn't resist sharing this article I just came across. I admit I DO judge people by their email addresses and the majority of French people I have met have either a hotmail.fr or a yahoo.fr email address. Only very few have a gmail address whereas the majority of people I know in Australia have a gmail address. Some of the less technically apt tend to have hotmail addresses (errr quelle horreur). Whenever someone gives me a hotmail address I come up with 2 conclusions (which may or may not be true):
1. This person probably NEVER checks their email because they live on Facebook/Twitter/myspace etc and they do everything on their phone and not on a real computer.
2. This is not their REAL email address as they don't trust me enough to give that to me. Since it's not their real email address anything I send them won't be seen for another 3 months (yes that has happened so many times...)
What's scary about their 'analysis' of a typical gmail user is that it fits me to a tee except...
Gmail users are most likely to be thin young men ages 18-34 who are college-educated and not religious. Like other young Hunch users, they tend to be politically liberal, single (and ready to mingle), and childless. Gmail users live in cities and have traveled to five or more countries. They’re career-focused and plugged in — they mostly read blogs, have an iPhone and laptop, and listen to music via MP3s and computers (but they don’t have a DVR). At home, they lounge around in a t-shirt and jeans. Gmail users prefer salty snacks and are introverted and entrepreneurial. They are optimistic OR pessimistic, depending on the situation.
The only thing that doesn't fit me is that I am female and that I don't have an iPhone. And I lounge around in longjohns (which I wear UNDER my jeans) and I prefer both salty and sweet snacks.
I've had a gmail address pretty much as soon as they came out. One of my geeky IT friends from university gave me an 'invitation' so I made an account and have since made several more gmail accounts. Prior to that I also had hotmail, yahoo and excite email addresses but mainly, I just used a normal POP account from one of Australia's biggest internet service providers which allowed me to also access my messages through the web (so there was no need for another webmail account). AOL was never that big in Australia although I do remember they often gave out 'free' CDs for internet accounts and I even signed up at one point... can't remember what happened after...
It wasn't until 2007 when I moved overseas that I finally started to use my gmail account for real and now I can't live without it! I actually have it synced with Apple Mail which is great, meaning I can read all my messages offline as well. It also keeps the folders structure that I've created too. And if you have several gmail accounts you can access them all together in the one place without needing to login/logout all the time!
How to Sync Gmail and Apple Mail : Here are some instructions if you are wondering how to do it.
The scary thing is that I've been using the internet since 1995, well before some of my students were even born! From talking to my students I get the impression that they hardly ever use email and only really use the internet to: go on Facebook, download mp3s, listen to music (Deezer is a favourite site of the French in general) and watch tv shows/movie (streaming). Oh, and to play games of course!!
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