Email is evil

Last week I attended a talk by Tom Chatfied, on ‘How to Thrive in the Digital Age.’ It was part of an event by the School of Life. You should check it out – I’ve put the web address at the bottom – but for now, back to the point, this talk by Tom Chatfield.

One of Tom’s throwaway comments was, ‘I’m not saying email is evil – although I could make a pretty good case for it.”

And it’s got me thinking.

Email. Bloody email. Let me check my email. Email me. Did you get my email? The sender of my email wants a read receipt to prove I read it. This email has a red flag and has been deemed urgent. Your inbox is almost full. 

Have you ever asked yourself: what does email want? This might sound like a silly question; email - after all  - is not a thinking sentient being with needs or wants? Or is it?

The conclusion I have reached is quite simple: EMAIL WANTS YOU TO SEND MORE EMAIL.

Reply. Copy everyone in. Forward. Blind copy. (naughty) Reply to the reply. Empty your inbox – only to fill up everyone else’s. Why phone? It takes five seconds to accomplish in an e-mail something that takes minutes on the phone. Shun conversing – who needs words like hello and goodbye or to have to pretend to have some semblance of interest in the person on the other end of the line?

No me neither.

Suggest a lunch date? I’ll need an email to confirm that invitation. Thank you very much.

I have 112 unanswered e-mail messages. Every time I start to reply to one a new e-mail icon bobs up and down and I’m compelled to check whether anything good or interesting has arrived. It hasn’t. 

I replace conversation with smiley faces which express my emotions in dots and brackets. I accidentally send a smiley face to a colleague. I fail to respond to a red flag.

Sorry, but Rachel is offline and will not be responding to her emails. She has concluded they are evil.

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The School of Life have a website http://www.theschooloflife.com/

I’m sure they also have an email address, but you’ll have to find that out for yourself.

Blueberry blip

I don’t have a BlackBerry. I can glean from heartbroken users on the news and the sad looking teenager at the bus stop that the phone has a glitch. Judging by the news coverage this is second only to an apocalypse.

I thought we’d all gone off BlackBerrys? The last time I looked they were responsible for the riots and were having a similar brand crisis to Burberry in the 90’s, when Wolverhampton market started flogging baseball caps in their iconic plaid print.

But turns out man cannot live offline alone. I don’t even know what BBM is, but I seem to be mourning its passing.

Blackberry users -  you should be rejoicing, not demanding compensation. Your boss can no longer contact you on your lunch/ loo/ fag break. You can once again communicate in more than 140 characters. You might actually have to speak to your friends.

Actually, I can’t believe I’m giving this the time of day.  

I’m going the same place as BlackBerry.

Offline.

I'm out of the office

I remember the first time I sent an email. I was 14. My dad had brought a computer home from school, and my brother and I hauled the whole thing out into the hallway and plugged it into the phone-line.

I had mail.

My teenage years were spent patiently waiting for dial-up to load. My parents loved dial up less than their teenage children and spent their time (less than patiently) insisting that ‘someone is probably trying to get through on the phone.’

When I say insisting, I mean yelling.

These were the good old days; when MSN messenger was the height of sophistication, when Facebook’s founder was still playing with meccano and when no-one even knew they wanted internet on their mobile – for they had all they needed in snake.

Now of course, we are slaves to our email. Recall that time when, if you were on holiday – you were on holiday. You were not attached to a blackberry, recalling all your blunders at work and remembering that you forgot to email so-and-so before your left. You didn’t check your blackberry every 15 minutes, as if the world might collapse otherwise, when in reality your colleagues were probably delighted that you weren't there.

So yes, email has got my goat. The world still turned when we couldn’t check them 24 hours a day. Business deals still got made. Companies survived.

For goodness sakes, I’m think I’m getting arthritis in my thumb from smart phone scrolling.

I have been out of the office for 2 working days. I have 127 unanswered emails. Imagine how much work I could do if I didn’t have to answer all these e-mails. Even as I type I am watching for that friendly email icon bubble to pop up in the corner of my screen. Something incredibly important could arrive at any second. Invariably it won’t.

I honestly do not require viagra, ‘special’ offers, a lottery win from Nigeria or advice on ‘how much my injury claim might be worth’.

You do not ‘value’ my opinion, this email will probably not ‘make me laugh’ and I'm not sure I want to add you as one of my friends.

Email was once a breakthrough. Now we wonder how we ever lived without it. I have more to say on this subject, but I have to answer a facebook message from someone I almost know.