Nathan Exposed » The Electronic Curse, Part 2: E-mail

The Electronic Curse, Part 2: E-mail

Oh, the blessed curse of e-mail. It’s a wonderful way to convey a quick message or share a long story with a pal. But it’s also a wicked bitch, isn’t it?

E-mail makes it so easy to misunderstand someone’s tone. There have been many times I thought someone was a jerk because of the way they composed an e-mail. Likewise, people have been upset with me because of how I wrote an e-mail.

E-mail makes us hypersensitive. If we don’t receive a reply within a few hours, we start to form our own scenarios. Is he ignoring me? Why hasn’t he written? That lazy bastard.

Just 10 years ago, the internet was still uncommon in many households. If we wanted to write someone, we had to write a letter, mail it, and wait for a response. That could take a whole week!

Of course, we could always call them. Then again, we still can call. But we often choose e-mail because it’s easier to convey things when we can see our words.

So my point is…
I’m just saying that technology is both good and bad. I can’t imagine my life without technology. What would we do with our time? How would we meet all these awesome human beings in the world? I don’t have a specific point or moral to this story.

More than anything else, I’m writing this because it’s thought-provoking. I do my best to find balance. I try not to run to the phone. I try not to let e-mail substitute a nice conversation with a friend. And I felt like talking about it.

Related Posts:
- The Electronic Curse, Part 1: Phones

Thu, Mar 23, 2006 @ 9:27 pm | Filed in Technology | Permalink

4 Comments

I can’t imagine anyone misunderstanding the intent of an-e-mail or a comment on a blog *snickers*.

E-mail at times has been a curse to me. I used to write letters in a huff and then after some cooling down would never send. NOW I send and then later think, WHAT have I done?

Case in point, my letter to the editor. It would have never been sent if it weren’t for e-mail. After it was all said and done, I thought…OMFG!

Posted by Scotty on Fri, Mar 24, 2006 @ 12:00 am

I’ve often sent mail/text and wondered if I came off as a complete dick, and I’ve received the same and was all like WTF does that mean… I’ve decided it’s very hard to convey emotion in a medium like this.

Posted by Steve on Fri, Mar 24, 2006 @ 2:16 am

The thing about e-mail is that it’s definitely not good when you are pissed. I’ve found the best thing to do is write out the e-mail, save it as a draft, take an hour or even a day to breathe, go back and reread the e-mail, and then decide if you still want to send it. Odds are, you won’t. But it’s cathartic to get it out like that.

I’ve also taken some things people have written me the wrong way, and vice versa. It sucks, but it’s still the best and least intrusive way of getting in touch with someone. I give it two thumbs up.

Posted by Sara on Fri, Mar 24, 2006 @ 1:56 pm

One of the other interesting points to consider regarding this topic of email is that many scolars fear we are loosing some of the greatest works of writing that we’ve ever seen because it’s all in electronic format and too frequently destroyed before anyone can realize it’s importance. In the past we had famous letters and writings that would be ‘found’ but now all this communication to each other is electronic and deleted with the push of a button.

Posted by Rich Brown on Sun, Mar 26, 2006 @ 2:58 pm