Email

Electronic mail, the high priestess of 21^st century communications leaves a lot to be desired as even the most ardent of devotees of it might agree.  One characteristic about it that I find particularly disturbing is that it carries with it a degree of arrogance by the sender. It’s as if e-mail is universal and taken for granted that everyone uses it and it  doesn’t matter if you like it or not. Phrases like: “Didn’t you get my e-mail” abound especially in the workplace as it seems to have replaced good old tried and true face to face communiqués.  What it has done to the written word however cannot begin to be calculated.  Once regarded as a wonder of man’s invention it now has become it’s own bureaucracy. Yes of course it’s more efficient in the world of multi-tasking but how far do we go in depersonalizing our own existence?  When we go to our mailbox at the end of the drive or in the downstairs hallway we know instinctively how to separate junk mail from the items that we must pay heed to.  Now however our being able to discern what is truth and what is fiction has taken a scurrilous turn. 

When was the last time you sat down and actually wrote a letter to someone just out of your automobiles capabilities?  I would venture to say it might be a long time. Oh I guess you still might send a card with your John Hancock for someone’s birthday but outside of that we seem to prefer touching others electronically which is totally devoid of human emotion. Yes we can add some new age anagrams and smiley’s but even those attachments are no more intimate than the greetings we exchange with familiar faces.