It’s easy to forget the benefits of new technology, especially those that are so nifty that we quickly integrate them into our daily lives. Let us, then, take a moment to reflect on the wonderful invention that is e-mail. This is an apt moment in which to do so, especially in light of the terrorist attacks and the harrowing reality of anthrax in the mail, two Very Bad Things which only serve to remind us of our blessings in having such a fantastic method of communication at our disposal.
E-mail is, first of all, an amazing testimonial to the power of the free market. The creative destruction of the market is such that not even two centuries of government monopoly on the mail could prevent the development of e-mail. A letter, after all, is basically just a string of text, and since text takes up such a miniscule amount of bandwidth, there is essentially no way to prevent people from sending a chunk of text from one computer to another. So e-mail is faster than a first-class letter, it is cheaper than a first-class letter and, best of all, the only viruses that can be attached to it are those of the electronic variety. Sure, it can be a pain to have to reformat your hard drive, assuming you fail the stupid test and actually run an executable file sent you by a stranger, but that sure beats fighting for your life in the intensive care unit.
Those of my generation are fortunate to have lived through very few disasters, (as of yet, anyhow), but it was interesting to note some of the differences between the terrible events of Sept. 11 this year, and the large earthquake that hit the Bay Area 11 years ago. Thanks to e-mail, I had received word that all of my friends, family and acquaintances in New York were safe less than three hours after the second tower collapsed. Contrast this with all of the frantic phone calls being made by friends from San Francisco, some of whom were not able to get in contact their families until the following day because the Bay Area phone system was overloaded.
Another great thing about e-mail is that you can send it from anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Prague or Sydney, as long as you can beg, borrow or rent an Internet connection, you’re in business. On the afternoon of Sept. 11, it was clear from the e-mails we received that people were gathering together wherever someone had a solid online connection and were taking turns spamming all of their friends and relatives in order to let everyone know they were all right. The message below from one college friend was typical of those we received that day.
“I live not far from the former World Trade towers. I’m currently a little further north at my friend’s house with quite a few people watching TV and using his connection. I’ll give you a detailed one when things settle down here … I don’t want to tie up the e-mail from others.”
E-mail is so efficient that, thanks to an ancillary development – the mailing list – entire communities of people with shared interests are able to keep in contact on a daily basis. For the last three years, I have been a member of a mailing list which is a small group of around 700 people living around the world who play an obscure and complex game of World War II infantry combat. In all that time, I have only met 20 or so list-folk in person, but nevertheless, I have gotten to know many of them well as friendly acquaintances. We use our list mainly to discuss the game and its rules, but also to set up tournaments, congratulate each other on little things like marriages, children or winning the World Series co-MVP, and to recommend hotels and restaurants to list-folk visiting town.
Not that e-mail is perfect. While it’s easier to trash spam than junk mail, it is nevertheless annoying. And who doesn’t know someone with a terminal case of Forwarding Finger, that odious bane of humanity who simply can’t resist passing on the many painful, clich?-ridden essays with their afternoon-school-special philosophies that infest the Internet like kudzu. Myself, I’m not sure which is worse, forwarded spam or the professional variety. Would you rather read something with the subject “re:re:re:Send This To 10 Strong Women You Know” or try to explain to your Significant Other why “Hot Nude Teens” keep showing up in your inbox? It’s like having to decide whether Dan Rather or Peter Jennings is your favorite spawn of Satan … I mean, unbiased news anchor.
But isn’t spam really a small price to pay for the ability to give the proverbial avian salute to the U.S. Postal Service, who – come rain, sleet, snow, Hell or high water – will tell you that they really, really, really need to raise the price of a first-class stamp again. I’m proud to say that I don’t even know what that price is anymore, and that is thanks, of course, to e-mail. Let’s face it, the art of written communication was dying out because of the telephone, and it is only back in style due to e-mail and its younger European cousin, the cell-phone text message: 1 tht wud no dbt confuze shakespr n prbly outrite kill mr danl webster but still its riting, k?
Even before the onset of home delivered bio-warfare, there was no question that e-mail is a tremendous improvement over the traditional post office. More than just a convenience, it has also been a small step forward in the cause of human freedom. But here’s a thought to ponder: Isn’t the propaganda and shallow misinformation delivered to your door by newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Post and many local rags like the Minnesota Star & Sickle all too similar to an anthrax for the mind? Just as e-mail has taken the place of the postal service, it is time for the online New Media to replace the ideological monolith of the mainstream news media.
