Why email no longer rules When the CD-ROM arrived, people predicted the death of the printed book. (0) __ I . If not communication, then at least the end of grammar, spelling and punctuation. And so on, until we reach the current prediction that an explosion of tweets, status updates and messaging on social networking sites heralds the death of email - and this time it might be for real.
Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is obviously over. In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold. (19)
. Just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate - in ways we can only begin to imagine.
We still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the internet - logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. (20)
. Being online all the time has created a host of new ways to communicate that are faster than email, and more fun.
Why wait for a response to an email when you get a quicker answer with instant messaging? Thanks to social networks, some questions can be answered without even asking them. (21)
. Email, stuck in the era of attachments, seems boring compared to services which allow users to share photos plus other information and to enter comments in near real-time.
So how will these new tools change the way we communicate? Let's start with the most obvious: they make our interactions that much faster. Years ago, we were frustrated if it took a few days for a letter to arrive. A couple of years ago, we'd complain about a half-hour delay in getting an email. (22)
. In a few months, we may be complaining that our cell phones aren't automatically able to send messages to friends within a certain distance, letting them know we're nearby.
These new services also make communicating more frequent and informal - more like a blog comment or a throwaway aside, rather than a crafted email sent to one person. There is no need to spend time writing a long email to your half-dozen closest friends about how your vacation went. (23)
. Instead of sending a few emails a week to a handful of friends, you can send dozens of messages a day to hundreds of people who know you, or just barely do.
Meanwhile, one big question remains: will the new services save time, or eat up even more of it? You can argue that, because we have more ways to send more messages, we spend more time doing it. (24)
. We get lured into wasting time, telling our bosses we are looking into something, instead of just doing it, for example. And we will no doubt waste time communicating stuff that isn't meaningful, maybe at the expense of more meaningful communication - such as, say, talking to somebody in person.
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