Email is fast becoming one of the most disruptive technologies of this century. It has taken over language and the development of rhetoric adding specific terminology that is now a staple within many communities such as the college campus, to this day. Email is changing the way we communicate with each other, not only in the business arena but in the areas of personal communication as well. Email has altered the way we relate to one another with rhetoric and has changed business practices that are now simplified and made easier through the use of this new medium. Through the development of email, it has changed not only communication practices but also social norms as well prevalent within many households through out the United States.

One of the largest advantages present in the use of these new communication technologies via the Internet is the ability to connect to more people that you would have otherwise had the privilege of getting to know or staying connected to. However with this change in communication also comes a change in the practice and rhetoric involved. People are coming around to the online relationship and a large catalyst for this is email. There are several studies including “Getting Hyper-Personal” where this is the central theme involved in their research. The research even shows that “some people even claim that the visual anonymity and lack of co-presence adds to the “magic” of online relationship” and it goes further claiming “letter writing and thus emails and text messages are an important social practice in terms of modern relationship maintenance” (Getting Hyper-Personal). This new medium is allowing relationship, romantic or otherwise exist and it gives a select group of individuals something that was previously missing out of their past existing relationships.
Letters have been present through out history for hundreds of years and with the evolution of technologies come the letters cousin the email. Many of the characteristics that were attractive in the letter remain a draw for email as well. These included the need for people to be in constant communication with each other and the need to feel close to another human being. In the article Journalism History we see this point brought out front and center “essentially the idea is that correspondence can make people far apart feel close physically and/or psychologically/emotionally, or remind them how far apart they are”(Journalism history). This is interesting to note that while yes it allows people a link to their family and friends however it does make them painfully aware of the fact they are not with them experiencing everything that is going on.
From this presence we have developed a dependency not only on the mail system especially on the information system of the Internet and email. If the Internet were to break down then it would be exponentially harder to gather information and stay connected with family and friends. Email is ingrained in everyday business practices in the corporate world as well as educational communities. This reliance on email is seen through out campuses through Greek organization and student groups on campus. It helps them with their recruitment process and gets their name out on campus. Overall email helps these organizations grow and expand through new forms on communication. However with this new expansion does breed dependence on the technology and it is safe to say that if Email or the Internet were to break down then many of these groups would fall into chaos and turmoil.

The existence of letters is something relatively new in forms of technology. It was near impossible to have a mass transportation system with the ability to transport mail up until recent centuries. The letter, which is similar to email in the way that it eliminates personal contact among people, has changed how we communicate. The point was already made about the connected feeling associated with sharing an email however we also have to examine the effects that sending this email is having subconsciously versus the holistic process of sitting down to write a letter. Logging on to you email account, you are bombarded with ads and subtle propaganda and advertising slogans which have taken over your home page. In the book Letters, postcards, Email, by Esther Milne this point is brought up front and center “during the course of writing an email a Gmail user might discuss plans for an overseas trip which could prompt the display of a series of advertisements concerning particular airlines” (Letters, Postcards, Email, 156). This leads us to ask the question how much of that email and in the end the trip you will be taking is your own original thought or how much is it influenced by the media culture that we are surrounded by today. In the scary sci-fi short story “When the Machine Stops” the main concern of the lack of ideas as exemplifying by Vashti “Masses of black rock hovered below her, and merged indistinctly into grey. Their shapes were fantastic; one of them resembled a prostrate man.’No ideas here,’ murmured Vashti, and hid the Caucasus behind a metal blind” (When the machine stops). This shows the scary depiction of what could happen if we got so accustomed to the use of technology that we could form thoughts with out being connected in to some form of information highway.
We also see this new type of social relationship through Julian Dibbles book
Play Money where we saw in several cases how these virtual worlds was the cause of the deterioration within several relationships including in the end a cause of great controversy within his own. The reasoning behind this was “it was a parallel life”(Dibbel, 7). This new way of communicating allows the players of Ultima Online a way of breaking off from their real lives and in a sense merging it with their new one found online and the medium they are using to interact and communicate apart from MMORPG chat room is via email. This new form of communicating and connecting was also part of the basis for the movie “Second Skin” which follows several MMORPG players and in particular a couple who happen to meet through the Internet. (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpvsoP6UDGM )
Second Skin Review In several clips we see how the couples relationship evolved and changed via online communication and how it impact not only their social skills and the ability to meet a partner the natural way but also it seemed to breed volatile and complicated relationships.
Changes in the composition of relationship, is not all that has evolved since the use of email and the Internet as a forum for communication. There is the ever-present issue of what many people feel is the deterioration of the English language through the use of electronic mediums as a way of broadcasting our thoughts. The Gutenberg Elegies is a prime example of how many fear that from the use of improved electronic telecommunications it will eventually lead to the down fall of eloquent language even if such eloquent language was transmitted through the computer instead of a paper backed book. Birkerts states, “Words read from a screen or written onto a screen…have a different status and affect us differently from words help immobile on the accessible space of a page” (Gutenberg Elegies, 154). Even in an interview Birket again voices his concerns when posed a question about the increase in writing prevalent on blogs and through email he then responds “my intuition is that there will be much more TYPING, and much less writing and the effect of all this communicating will be the depreciate the stylistic and rhythmic qualities that are the very soul of communication”(Is cyberspace destroying society?).
Ted Kaczynski gives relatively solid advice support many of Birket’s ideas. While many of their concepts are not directly related, the opposition to technology is at the core of both men’s arguments. Kaczynski uses the argument relating the creation of technology with the waning of the private self and in most cases this is true. The Internet and email are all about connecting to one another and the spreading of ideas. Nothing involved with electronic communication deals with you, the sole purpose is to connect to others. The development of all communications in the past has served this purpose. It has filed the void missing in sending information. Whatever the effects of this constant need to communication is will not be known though in these next few decades it can only be seen through out hundreds and hundreds of years.

Still in the same realm discussing changes dealing with linguistics almost every college student with some way of communicating through the Internet has seen the ever present “LOL” or “BRB.” These meaningless phrases might not mean much but when they are carried out into everyday language which I have been witness too it marks a change in linguistic patterns and what people deem acceptable jargon to use in a social setting. In the article “Global Englishes and the sociolinguistics of spelling” the researchers examine the differences in Jamaican language through blogs and email from the Creole dialect to the common English dialect. We see through increased communication with blogs how people are exposed to new language and new spellings of the same words. This shows how culture within in the Jamaican community is changed as a result of their increased involvement with the Internet and email. Email has made it so they are able to communicate within not only their dialect and people but also be affected by communities around the world. This change in the dialect of the Jamaican culture represent a shift in cultural attitudes and changes within the very structure of their speech due to the increase knowledge and increased exposure to the Internet.
While clearly for the vast amounts of evidence for the effects email and online communications is having on language and relationships to this day is has yet to be determined whether or not this is for the betterment of communities and is simply the natural cycle that the English language has come to. When thinking about the evolution of language there is no denying we do not speak with the same eloquence that was prevalent in the seventeenth century however we have to note that a great deal less people had the means or resources to write back then. Now so many people through out our community have the opportunity to express themselves and their opinions, which in the end could lead to the differing level of intelligence embedded in everyone’s writing. It is unfair to assume that every person with a blogger account or any person drafting an email would put the same attention to detail that was used in drafting the great literary works of the century.
It is hard to decide in the end what the best solution or outcome is when it comes to email and the innovations that comes with these new communicated technologies. On one hand they help our communities stay connected and interact on a different level, they allow relationships occur where they would have otherwise not and they create a medium for the easy distribution of ideas and information. However on the other hand all of this progress can’t occur with out a price, the price being the deterioration of the English language and of our dependency on technology in general. Even with these negatives though the benefits out weigh them entirely. Email has helped develop our communities in to what they are today and shape how we interact with each other.
Sources:
Milne, Esther. Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.
Tonkin, Sarah. "Getting Hyper-Personal." Global Media Journal 4.1 (2010). Print.
Siff, Stephen. Journalism History 36.2 (2010): 118-19. Print.
Forster, E. M. "THE MACHINE STOPS ..." NCSA Web Archive Bounce Page. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html>.
Dibbell, Julian. Play Money, Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot. New York: Basic, 2006. Print.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/6350-Review-Second-Skin
Kaczynski, Ted. "The New Civility: Union Thugs Target Ann Althouse." Big Government. 17 Mar. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2011/03/17/the-new-civility-union-thugs-target-ann-althouse/>.
Hinrichs, Lars. "Global Englishes and the Sociolinguistics of Spelling: A Study of Jamaican Blog and Email Writing." English World Wide 32.1 (2011): 46-97. Print.
"Digital Culture - Is Cyberspace Destroying Society?" The Atlantic — News and Analysis on Politics, Business, Culture, Technology, National, International, and Life – TheAtlantic.com. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/aandc/trnscrpt/birkerts.htm>.
Parker, Philip M. Email Webster's Timeline History. San Diego: ICON Group International, 2009. Print.
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: the Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Faber and Faber, 2006. Print.
Wu, Timothy. Master Switch. [S.l.]: Atlantic (Uk), 2011. Print.
Sundqvist, Anett. "A Qualitative Analysis of Email Interactions of Children Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication." AAC: Augmentative and Alternative Communication 26.4 (2010): 255-66. Print.