Thursday, August 20, 2009

Email culture - have we evolved in tandem with the development of the internet? Part 1

One of the most widely used forms of current-digital-age-communication on the internet is the email.

Today, almost every nation is getting wired and almost every netizen who are serious about climbing on the internet bandwagon, has an email account. No internet user can go around surfing any decent site without having an email account if they want to fully utilize the site's function.

According to a Radicati Group study from August 2008, there are 1.3 billion email users worldwide and the numbers are increasing. That makes a tad more than one in every five persons on earth using email. The mailboxes commanded by these millions of users were estimated to number about 1.4 billion in 2006.

Retrospecting on Marshall McLuhan's theory on the Global Village, suggesting that "electronic communication allows people from different corners of the globe to simultaneously experience the same culture", I believe what he meant or prophesized was that it was the email and the internet.

By now we know that the email has helped mankind to communicate, educate, disseminate information and ease business related transactions by leaps and bounds as compared to the conventional snail-mail or even the telephone. In other words the email can assist us to be well informed, educated and be more cultured.

As the internet evolved, the email too got some kind of technological booster with the creation of its by-product - the bulletin boards and the e-groups. The advent of e-groups carried on another level with newer faze such as sites like Friendfinder, Frienster, MySpace and Multiply. These networking sites were meant as a platform for the young to communicate, socialize, post and share photos and exchange ideas.

Then comes Blogger and the independent news portal and the blogging community started to change the contents and the way people read (or were fed with) news and ideas and with whom they communicate with.

Yet as the internet evolved, and as novelty fades on some of the older networking sites, comes newer and more popular sites like LinkedIn, Hi5, Wayne, Tagged and Facebook. Utilization of other less popular pay-to-use communication tools like Skype and Twitter are also on the rise.

Another form of internet tool that is widely used by the younger generation is the chat system - YM, Google Talk and MSN (because most of it are free). Considered the internet's original substitution for word-of-mouth chatting, the chat system has also evolved with Yahoo, MSN and Google going neck-and-neck on the internet technological forefront.

And not to forget, there's also YouTube, Dailymotion and Flickr and a host of other video and photo display sites if you're into blogging of some kind other than text-based.

And of course, I must have missed out something, somewhere, somehow or rather about all the new and exciting networking sites, communication tools, gadgets and the various 'shows' on the planet that is called the internet.

All these illustrate that the speed of information and communication technology in the current digital age is fast-forwarding so rapidly that it is impossible for us to catch-up and know everything about the culture, development and evolution of the internet.

Nonetheless, the email hasn't evolved much, well at least not to me. The functions and the process of using it is still the same, some 15 years ago. Maybe I have used it less then, but an email program is just it, a software, a communication tool. You can even carry it around if you have a laptop connected to the internet or if your mobile phone allows you to use the functions of the internet.

But it is unlike the text messaging system on a mobile phone, as you can't use it to send and receive huge text, photos or video messages.

Right from the very first time when I was introduced to web-based email like the Hotmail and Yahoo! and later pop-mail such as Eudora, Microsoft Outlook and now the IMAP (aah.. don't mention the lousy Lotus Notes), there's not much to getting used to. It's all just plug-n-play - compose, attach, send and receive. All these shows that the email hasn't evolve much.

So, what has evolved with the email? The contents of course, depending on which e-groups, chat groups, email newsletters, news feed readers, alumni, friends or office user group we subscribe to using the email.

The contents of emails that we send, receive and consume (or digest) tell so much about whether we have matured or cultured. If the contents that we send and consume are the common chain-mails, urban legends and jokes that we get over and over again then we are nowhere getting knowledgeable, matured or cultured.

The language or the internet 'lingo' we use. If our command of a language hasn't changed a bit ever since we started to embrace the email vis-a-vis the internet, then we have not evolved in tandem with the times.

So, how do we fare when we ask ourselves these questions?

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