In Praise of Email

Something’s happening to us. And it isn’t good.

Remember when email was new? And it felt like magic being able to write a note to a friend in another country or continent and hear back from them in a matter of minutes? This form of communication was revolutionary.

And it did change the rules of engagement. It pretty much killed the fax machine. And it actually provided what it said it would — direct speedy communication.

And then, like most of the good things delivered by tech over the past couple decades, it got subsumed.

I’m not clear on the order in which these things emerged but think about how each of these has robbed you of email as a useful tool of communication.

1. SPAM. When my InBox started filling up with SPAM, I responded the way most people I know did. I got a second email address. And like some mad coronovirus, SPAM has managed to find me and overrun my InBoxes. Actually, it’s more like kudzu. It’s now everywhere and I can’t seem to see my way through it to pick out the actual real emails I want to read.
2. Text messages. You can’t really effectively cram as much content into a text as you can into the body of an email and the architecture of text messaging is a lot more cumbersome and unweildy. Yet, somehow, our cell phone providers have managed to convince us to make the shift incrementally so that now most of us choose to text before we consider sending an email. One thing to keep in mind: As designed, email is always free. The same cannot be said of text messaging, which despite all the “unlimited talk and text” offers we get actually do cost us $.
3. Social Media. Communicating via comments on posts and DMs may be effective in terms of speed but two things are true here that are worth considering: None of it is actually 1-to-1 communication and it’s not always easy to archive and/or locate. How many times have you recalled a hint of something important someone wrote to you and tried to find it in Facebook or in a Tweet. Good luck with that!

So, here’s the thing. I’m wondering if we might be able to re-claim email. I have no idea how, but it seems to me it was a damned efficient and effective means of communication.

It’s a shame that my InBox looks less like a garden and more and more like a dump.