The death of e-mail. - By Chad Lorenz - Slate Magazine
I feel a Mark Twain moment coming on.
It's been amazing to watch the growth of social networking sites across the internet and across the world. This article brings out the important point that we need to look through the lens of our communication needs rather than the products that were, are and will be there.
And when we think of those needs, we all have many different ones - different from other people but also we each have a variety of different needs at different times.
For facebook, I understand how younger people at college and just into the real world will be using it as part of their ongoing conversations. But lets face it, life does move on, and my friends change or fall out of favor. I can imagine a few awkward moments as we move on with our lives.
In my case, I find facebook a useful tool. It is something I tend to use for friends who I am no longer able to see physically very often. I also use it more as a broadcast tool to let people know what I am up to in a light manner. To be honest, I am less interested in what all my friends are doing every day, or even week/month.
E-mail remains key for me, partly due to the fact that many friends and family cannot keep up with the new modes of communication, but also because it has a key role for personal and reflective words, as well as those for more professional uses.
Even old fashioned snail mail is important to my family. I cannot say that I put pen to paper to any great extent, but my wife makes the most beautiful cards for holidays, birthdays, thankyou's and weddings. The human touch makes even more impact now, when the rest of our mail is bills and unwanted solicitation.
I think Chad hits the spot in his last words - "It's not hard to imagine a future communications command center where, on a single screen, you'll be able to choose between sending an e-mail, instant message, status note, or blog post—or sending all of them at once—and then have all those bits of text neatly and securely archived. Once that happens, nostalgic e-mailers like me won't have to feel like dinosaurs."
Before then however, I think we will see that the tools which are already available will become associated with certain types of communication needs. IM, text, facebook do not in fact impact e-mail - they add to our ability to communicate, and for that I think there is hardly any capacity constraint.
I feel a Mark Twain moment coming on.
It's been amazing to watch the growth of social networking sites across the internet and across the world. This article brings out the important point that we need to look through the lens of our communication needs rather than the products that were, are and will be there.
And when we think of those needs, we all have many different ones - different from other people but also we each have a variety of different needs at different times.
For facebook, I understand how younger people at college and just into the real world will be using it as part of their ongoing conversations. But lets face it, life does move on, and my friends change or fall out of favor. I can imagine a few awkward moments as we move on with our lives.
In my case, I find facebook a useful tool. It is something I tend to use for friends who I am no longer able to see physically very often. I also use it more as a broadcast tool to let people know what I am up to in a light manner. To be honest, I am less interested in what all my friends are doing every day, or even week/month.
E-mail remains key for me, partly due to the fact that many friends and family cannot keep up with the new modes of communication, but also because it has a key role for personal and reflective words, as well as those for more professional uses.
Even old fashioned snail mail is important to my family. I cannot say that I put pen to paper to any great extent, but my wife makes the most beautiful cards for holidays, birthdays, thankyou's and weddings. The human touch makes even more impact now, when the rest of our mail is bills and unwanted solicitation.
I think Chad hits the spot in his last words - "It's not hard to imagine a future communications command center where, on a single screen, you'll be able to choose between sending an e-mail, instant message, status note, or blog post—or sending all of them at once—and then have all those bits of text neatly and securely archived. Once that happens, nostalgic e-mailers like me won't have to feel like dinosaurs."
Before then however, I think we will see that the tools which are already available will become associated with certain types of communication needs. IM, text, facebook do not in fact impact e-mail - they add to our ability to communicate, and for that I think there is hardly any capacity constraint.
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