- Image via Wikipedia
Electronic mail (email) is “a method for receiving messages you cannot understand, from people you don’t know, concerning things you don’t care about” Guy Kawasaki
Cantankerous Old Coots live in a world that we never imagined as kids back in the good old days of the 20th century. Our future was going to be living on the moon, or maybe even Mars and boldly going where no man has gone before. Now we live in the glorious 21st century where NASA’s only mission is to make the Muslim world feel good about being losers and email has replaced the art of writing letters. The future just ain’t what it used to be.
These days everybody wants your email address. They are too cheap to waste a stamp on you even though they know where you live. Instead they won’t do business with you unless you have an email address and they force you to read those emails in case there is an important communication there. Even Guy’s definition is now out of date because these days you do care about some of the emails but it is hard to find them in with all the junk.
I confess that I use email from time to time and appreciate the rapid exchange of information. If I could limit my in box to only my personal friends, it would be a great service. I might even be willing to pay for it but of course I can’t. And since it is free, everybody and their brother uses it to hawk their services and even legitimate businesses send me official information using email because they are trying to save a penny forcing me to go through hundreds of email per day just in case there is one that I really have to read. Such a waste of time.
I don’t have a solution to this 21st century nightmare. I don’t have the energy to cut off email all together and deal with the consequences. There may be techy ways to eliminate this problem but Coots don’t have the patience to find them. Anybody know a better way to manage email? Help a Coot out.
Personally I like email. IT is a nice and quick way communicate people. I like it even though I am personally pretty bad at it. That being said the majority of email is crap and spam. I get at least 50-60 spam emails a day…and that doesn’t count the stuff my spam filter catches that I never even see.
I can remember, “back in the day” getting armfulls of “junk” mail from the old snail mail system.
The funny thing is email is even becoming too “slow” at passing out information and is being overtaken by twitter etc. So maybe there will be a real “down with email” in the future.
Steve,
I like email personally too. What I don’t like is email impersonally. If I could pare it down to the emails I want or need to see, I’d change from Down to Up
Almost…but not quite…every time I get the urge to check email I do something useful instead…like go fishing.
It doesn’t work every time, but it DOES work often enough to keep my freezer full of fish and my grocery bill low.
I agree, let’s go fishing….
Bob,
And your mailbox full of spam.