When my son discovered texting, the first month he sent nearly two thousand text messages. That is only about sixty per day; it is a good thing he was in school all day and had four extracurricular activities! I wonder how he'll do if he ever gets a smart phone or Blackberry. But he is really a talker. He got his own phone plan last year, with unlimited talk. He needs it!
It was more than twenty years ago that I first saw this scenario: two colleagues happen to meet in the hallway. One says, "Oh! I was just going to send you a message," immediately runs back to the office and sends the message. Am I right to feel proud that I've never done that, that I still prefer to do business face-to-face? I know in this era I am the unusual one.
In his new book The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox, John Freeman presents a historical and social sketch followed by a manifesto. While he doesn't make this claim, I suspect there are adults now living who have never sent a snail mail letter, the kind written on paper and sent with an envelope and a stamp.
I am still traditional enough to value paper letters. I have recently finished the basic curation of my parents' letters to each other as an engaged couple during World War II. Hundreds of them; they wrote nearly daily. I also have a couple binders of curated letters from the years prior to World War I, among my grandparents' generation. Though both my grandmothers were great storytellers, there are details in these letters that they never mentioned.
How will our grandchildren learn the homely details of our lives, the lives of the early 21st Century? Will they screen through thousands of emails? (I don't hyphenate "email" any more). But author Freeman's message is more about the present than about past or future. While he ably presents the development of the mails from clay-tablet times to the present, he is clearly concerned about how we, with our stone-age brains, are adapting to the age of instantaneous communications.
The fact is, we are adapting poorly. The diseases of sedentary living that afflicted our pre-computer ancestors are hitting the X and Y generations (and many Boomers such as myself) with a vengeance. Stress is greater than ever. Many people start and end the day using their Blackberry in bed (whatever happened to a little cuddle from your spouse?). When you get an email from your boss at 4AM, do you feel compelled to answer within the hour?
The manifesto is based on three premises: Speed Matters (and not the way you think); the Physical World Matters; and Context Matters. While he develops these ideas into ten recommendations, three strike me as essential:
(3) Check it Twice a Day. With rare exceptions, our work tasks benefit from block time. Even the most frenetic jobs can usually be done best if the email is checked no more than hourly. While I use Lotus Notes at work, and it is always running, I ignore the Bings and check in only when I have finished the task at hand.
(6) Read the Entire Incoming E-mail Before Replying. I've done it; you've done it: answer the question in the first paragraph without reading further. Huge misunderstandings and even flame wars can result. Read (all), think, think again, then answer.
(10) Schedule Media-free Time Every Day. I am a knowledge worker, so I am faced by a screen all day long. Many days, I decline to turn on any of the computers at home in the evening. Sometimes I'll go the whole weekend without running a computer (which is why I blog less often on weekends). It is also why I haven't bought a Kindle or similar device. I read paper books, nearly every evening. You can be sure that every book I've reviewed in this space (~600 to date) was a paper edition.
Things to do when not emailing:
- Take a walk with a friend, and talk about what you see as you stride along.
- Cook a better meal than usual.
- Engage in a hobby (my main ones are photography and various collections).
- Read a book or magazine.
- Sit and talk.
- Play a card game or board game (non-electronic).
- Learn a musical instrument, or if you know one, play your own music for yourself.
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