Every once in a while I open a FW from someone’s email. And every once in a while I surprised. There may be some funny photos or funny phrases or even a provocative thought. But more often than not I use the delete button. Email is becoming obsolete, or at best very focused.
I think that’s why most people are going to text messaging. You really can’t forward something. It’s immediate and personal (at least until someone finds out how to send spam through text messages). We don’t use IM (or MSN) much anymore. And emails are a hassle even with spam cleaners on your internet servers. That was the assessment of my sister whose two teenage daughters are on the cusp of this continued information revolution.
Now, I’m just waiting to see what will be the next wave of the future. How will we stay immediately in touch? Or will we decide to restrict our contact? I was sitting with someone at coffee, and they received and answered a text mail. Maybe not as obvious as a cell phone, but still somewhat distracting. Is it good etiquette to disregard a text mail? Or do we need to keep all things ordered in our world every second of every day?
I wonder how my grandmother survived contact wiith her family when the mail would take weeks to arrive and weeks to be sent? Did that push her to focus more on a few people instead of a large crowd? In that case, Saturday night on main street with the local residents may have both a highlight and a stress reliever.
How much information can we process at one time? Have we become such control freaks that we constantly require the latest piece of communication so we are not left out of something that is totally irrelevant to our lives? Is just taking a holiday from information going to save our lives??