Most people believe email started with the BBS in 1978, but seven years before than in October 1971, Ray Tomlinson developed SNDMSG ("Send Message") that allowed a message to be sent from one computer to another. He’s also responsible for the @ in an email address because he believed it created a sense of place.

The Good

I still to this day get a genuine sense of wonder that I can send a message to anyone who has an email address, and that the message is delivered in seconds. To put this in perspective, I can send a message to someone in Sydney, Australia – which is almost 9,300 miles away from me – and it’s there faster than you can say "electronic mail". The fact I or anyone else is even able to do that is nothing short of miraculous.

Another thing that’s great about email is I don’t have to think about it. Start a new message, enter recipient(s), type-type-type, click send button, done. It works. I don’t have to think about how it works or concern myself with any technical aspect of it. That, for all intents and purposes, is technology working for you and not you for it. The machine keeps running and you don’t have to worry about how the machine gets it done as long as it does what it’s supposed to do – and it does.

The Bad(?)

More than just a few people have said over the years that as convenient and reliable email is, the biggest drawback is that it’s dehumanizing. Cited reasons are that it’s too easy, too impersonal and ultimately makes for more meaningless communications than meaningful because no sensory contact (sight, sound or touch) is ever established.

In my experience I’ve found there are some people who can express themselves better with talking, and others by the written word.

Many computer-geeky people suffer from cluttering to varying degrees. Sure, they can write emails in the most dignified English you’ve ever read, but on attempt to speak they find themselves "running over their own words" constantly, maybe have a stutter here and there, spout out tons of verbal fillers (um.. eh.. err.. ah…) involuntarily, and so on. Someone who has cluttering issues with speech doesn’t mean they’re stupid, but rather they’re just not that good at expressing ideas verbally.

While email is considered dehumanizing by some, I personally don’t classify it that way because there are certain types of people who express themselves best using that communications medium. For the kids who haven’t learned how to speak up for themselves, they can speak up with a text message. For the adults that have difficulties expressing ideas due to their own brains "running ahead of them", they can take their time with emails. None of this is dehumanizing, because if these people didn’t have the option of email, it’s probably true they wouldn’t communicate with anyone at all.

To those who would say "I wish people would talk more" as a disparaging remark about email, change that to "I wish people would listen more". Nobody can have a conversation if nobody’s listening. Be a listener and more people will talk to you. Yes, really. Otherwise they’ll just keep emailing you.

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