Thursday, October 27, 2011
It's Time to Really Think About Email
Lifehack: It’s gone on long enough. Email has managed to take hold of too many lives, distracting us from what we really should be doing by sucking us back into responding to messages coming at us on an ongoing basis. The technology of email is wonderful in that we can actually communicate with each other from opposite ends of the globe or from right next door with just a few keystrokes and a “whoosh” from our computer’s speakers, but it has come at a cost that is getting out of control.
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7 comments:
Personally, I don't use e-mail often enough for it to be an issue of feeling like I have to check it all of the time. However, I would relate the feeling of having to always open up a new notifications to Facebook. I find it odd that the article lists Facebook as an "E-Mail Alternative" when the article discusses the addictive nature of e-mail or the need to always be checking it. Facebook is ten times worse for getting distracted by than e-mail is in my opinion. Sure, it would allow you to share more than text with others, but it does too much to be an efficient communication method. The article does bring to light a good point about not always having to know immediately what that new e-mail says, and how we shouldn't feel the need to reply instantaneously to e-mails, finishing whatever is of greater priority first.
Email is great because of its universality, and as such we should keep using it. There have been lots of alternatives (Google Wave was actually a lot cooler than email because it built on the way we use email and added features that made it tres more efficient), but nobody bought into it. It's fine to take a day or two to reply to emails, although if it takes longer than that the courteous approach is to drop the sender a heads up that it'll take a bit to answer the email. Emails can also be forwarded. There's also a record. Phone calls are good too, but a lot of people prefer email or a lot of the time a phone call will necessitate a follow up email.
Here are couple thoughts. The author states that e-mail is a productivity demon. In many cases it is. But I feel that people who are distracted by their e-mail are also distracted by other things just as easily. If you are looking to procrastinate, e-mail is just as distracting as Angry Birds but if feels a little more “worky.” Now here is my take on this e-mail. Often an e-mail will determine my course of work for the day. If something pressing comes up or if there is a change, I would like to know that before I put 4 hours of work in a project that has been cut from the show. That is why I check my e-mail first. It is also why I went to great expense to be able to check my e-mail from my phone. Not only do I need e-mail to start a shift. I need access to it during transit between jobs. Soon there will be another revolution in electronic communications and it has already begun. Voice mail; Visual Voice Mail; Txt Messages; Audible E-mail Messages; IM; e-mail; Mobil e-mail- All these need and will be merge into one system. Right now I get messages from 4 different sources. Soon someone will find an easy way to make these all one thing and it will replace them all. Remember inter office memo’s?
I'm not quite sure that email is made up to be all that the article has is painted out to be. I think that it depends on the age group of people using email. I just know that on a college campus, other things are more readily followed, facebook, twitter, etc... I do kind of know what the article talks about. There are always those characters in movies that are tied to their phone email and that end up being workaholics. These characters did not sprout up out of fiction. I think I even know of some of these people. A lot of parents from my high school were some of these people and it is sad to watch. Unfortunately it is where we are heading. Soon everyone is going to be plugged in, in some way, shape, or form.
Although it is true that email should not take over our lives, I do not think that an alternative means of communication needs to be thought up. If people are unable to participate in every day activities due to being too distracted by their email, the problem lies within that person and not the email. It is important to both keep up with email to stay connected to your work place and the outside world and to also be able to turn away from the computer or phone and function in life non virtually.
I completely agree with this author. So many people think of e-mails the same way they think of text messages (this is large due to the fact that so many people have e-mail on their cell phones now). If you don't respond to an e-mail within two hours, they're surprised and concerned. If an issue is that time sensitive, the phone is your friend. Just because people receive e-mail instantaneously does not mean you should expect someone to read it instantaneously.
I also agree here- emails are great forms of communication but can somehow be abused as the only way ideas and messages are exchanges, so much so that they become our only form of communication. This can be the case with anything- text messages, phone calls, anything. We just need to stay aware of the urgency we often invest in emails- and wary that all though staying in touch with colleagues and peers is important, we must not keep it as a number one priority. I personally never check my email as often as I should, but understand why people keep on top of it- as long as we keep a respectful medium between the two.. Email won't be so overbearing.
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