I don’t remember the last time I actually emailed someone I knew as a form of communication. I forward newsletters to my wife sometimes. The culture of texting, where you can take your time to respond (within a day or two), has kind of made email obsolete.
I remember when Whatsapp started taking off here in Europe. Everyone was like “you can text for free now, even send media, it all just works over the internet.” And I always said “well isn’t it just the same as email? Your smartphone can do that anyway, what do you need WA for?” and I still kinda feel like that.
Someone was complaining with me today that they weren’t able to leave me a voice mail (because I intentionally didn’t set it up). Like who the fuck still uses that shit? I knew they called and when they called, it’s in my log and I also had a notification. What more do I need to know? Text me ya lunatic!
You don’t email for work reasons or for setting up appointments? My job doesn’t even involve email but I get emails from my boss from time to time and for me to make appointments with certain things I have to do it over email…
Email is still really useful when you have a lot to say but don’t want to write a letter. If I’m catching up on the last several weeks with my parents, I’m not going to write a 10-page text. I can write a nicely formatted email and attach a few photos, though. It’s far more convenient than writing a letter and stuffing a bunch of printed photos into an envelope.
That’s a good point. I guess if I’m in the situation where I have a lot to say; I’d rather just talk on the phone with someone. Now that I think of it, I feel like the telephone replaced physical letters before email even came along. But, I do highly respect the long-form communication of letters and email. It’s just kind of rare these days.
