E-mail is essentially diarrhoea of the fingers. Jumbled thoughts typed thoughtlessly - and of utmost importance, quickly - and sent with a gentle click.
In the 1960s, futurists predicted that by the year 2000 robots would perform menial daily tasks, leaving humans more time to enjoy each other. Instead people hire other people to clean their homes, but don't share a cup of coffee with them - we're all playing Commando on the computer.
Better yet, we're typing our neighbour a quick e-mail: 'hey. nice weather outside. hi score is 80 billion. beat that, sucker.' Suddenly, we're all e.e. cummings without the poesy. Writing isn't a craft, it's a bunch of bytes encrypted over computer lines and tossed in the digital trash bin.
I pump out e-mails without pause. But those hand-written letters have taken a parachuteless sky dive. Non-wired friends are, for all practical purposes, non-friends. Unless they want to foot the now comparatively ludicrous long-distance phone bill.
For some reason, there is so much power in the printed word, and electronic typing is gibberish. There is impersonality in e-mail - sometimes toyed with by creating emoticons, or sideways smirks with a combination of colons and semicolons - ;*) - but still not quite a personalised curlycued 's' or even the despised hand-drawn heart over the little 'i'.
Not to mention the sheer amount of time wasted sending electronic memos. A note to a colleague may run several sentences, when a quick hello-how's-your-day-paper's-on-your-desk quip would do the trick.
I'm all for e-mail across the oceans or continent's divide, but across the hall seems a bit silly. Or worse across the workroom.
