Email is fast becoming one of the most disruptive technologies of this century. This innovative technology, as well as ones similar such as Skype and online chat rooms, has taken over language and the development of rhetoric by adding specific terminology that is now commonplace within many communities such as the college campus. Email is changing the way that we communicate with each other, not only in the business arena but in areas of personal contact as well. Email has altered the way we relate to one another and has changed business practices that are now simplified and made easier. Through the development of email, it has changed not only communication practices but also social norms throughout the United States and much of the developed world, within the confines of romantic as well as professional relationships.
Letters have been in use throughout history and as technologies evolved the letter’s grandchild emerged: the email. Many of the characteristics that were attractive in the letter remain desirable for email as well. These included the need for people to be in constant communication with each other and the desire to feel close to another human being. In the article “Journalism History”, we see this point clearly as Stephen Siff writes, “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”(Siff, 188-9). It is interesting to note that while email provides people a link to their family and friends, it does make the user painfully aware of the fact that they are not with that particular person. It is emotionally straining knowing you cannot experience everything they are experiencing and be there for everything that is taking place in the other person’s life. Long distance relationships are a key example because while the relationship may fulfill a need at the time, such as companionship, in the long run it has been my personal experience the couple ends up yearning for more intimate physical contact and break-up.
The postal service was developed around 1775 creating a more cohesive system for Americans to communicate. The letter, which is similar to email in the way that it eliminates physical contact among people, has changed how we communicate. There is the feeling of connectedness associated with sharing an email and how it allows you to become linked with that person. 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 your email account, you are often bombarded with ads for name brands and subtle propaganda regarding public safety; these advertising slogans can take over your home page. In the book Letters, Postcards, Email, by Esther Milne this point is brought up directly “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” (Milne, 156). This leads us to pose the question how much of that email and, in the end, the potential trip you could be taking, is your own original thought and how much is it influenced by the media culture we are surrounded by today. In “When the Machine Stops” by E.M Forster, we see a fictional community where machines control every aspect of the characters lives we see how the overwhelming presence of technology the ability to form a thought is to be diminished. “When the Machine Stops” the main concern of the lack of ideas as exemplifying by Vashti, the main protagonist, “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” (Forster). From this technology overload, Vashti is unable to appreciate the majesty of the mountains and deems it to be unworthy. This shows the frightening depiction of what could happen if we grew increasingly so accustomed technology so that we could not form thoughts without being connected to some form information highway.
As a result of email’s presence, we have developed a dependency not only on the mail system but on the information system of the Internet and email as well. If the Internet were to break down, it is likely that our communities would find it to be exponentially harder to gather information and stay connected with others. Email is ingrained in everyday practices in the corporate world as well as educational communities. This reliance on email can be seen throughout campuses in Greek organizations and student groups. The Internet helps the fraternities and sororities with their recruitment process and helps to gives them publicity. Overall, email helps these organizations to grow and expand through new forms on communication. However, this new expansion may breed increased dependence on the technology. It is safe to say that if email or the Internet were to break down, many of these groups would fall into chaos and turmoil.
One of the largest advantages present in the use of these new communication technologies is the ability to connect to more people than you may not have had the chance to remain in contact with. However, with this change in communication also comes a change in the practice and vocabulary involved. This is seen when people engage in online relationships, a large catalyst for which is email. There are several studies including one entitled “Getting Hyper-Personal”, in which this is the central theme was involved in their research. The research shows that some people claim that the visual anonymity and lack of co-presence adds to the magic of online relationships. The study goes further, claiming “letter writing and thus emails and text messages are an important social practice in terms of modern relationship maintenance” (Tonkin). This new medium is allowing relationship, romantic or otherwise, to exist and gives a select group of individuals the aspect that may have previously missing out of their past existing relationships. While for many people this illusive element cannot be pinpointed, for others, what has been missing is constant attention and displays of affection that can be represented in electronic messages. On a more academic basis, many in the college atmosphere find it easy to collaborate and share ideas via the Internet, which allows them access to trade and swap data when it would have otherwise been much more difficult.
We have seen a new type of relationship emerge from the development of technology that has come about since email, such as Skype and Facebook Chat. We see this new type of social relationship displayed in Julian Dibbell’s book Play Money. In the book the readers observed how virtual worlds was the cause of the deterioration within several relationships, including in the end, a cause of great controversy within the author’s own. The reasoning behind the issues in Dibell’s marriage was reality become a parallel life”(Dibbell, 7). This new way of communicating allows the players of Ultima Online, a virtual game, a way of breaking away from their real lives and in a sense merging those lives with their new one found online. The medium used by the players to interact and communicate other than MMORPG, defined as multi-player online games, chat room is through email. This new form of communicating and connecting was also part of the basis for the movie, “Second Skin” which follows several MMORPG players. In a clip shown on BBC news we see a particular a couple who happen to meet through the Internet, goes through the trials and tribulations of an online relationship.
In several moments from the above clip one can see how couples’ relationship evolved and changed as a result of online communication. Not only their social skills and their ability to meet a partner the natural way, but also appears to breed volatile and complicated relationships. However these relationships may have been born from online role-playing communication, which is a branch off of email, and this new advancement in technological communication has provided us with many new mediums in which to interact.
Changes in the formation of romantic relationships is not all that has evolved since the use of email and the Internet became a forum for communication. There is an increasingly present issue of the deterioration of the English language, which, many say, has emerged from 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 we may eventually see the downfall of eloquent language. The author, Sven Birkerts, believes that even transcribing the same words from a paperback book to a computer screen degrades the quality of the language and takes away from the eloquency of the words. Birkerts writes “Words read from a screen or written onto a screen…have a different status and affect us differently from words held immobile on the accessible space of a page” (Birkerts, 154). In an interview, Birkerts again voices his concerns when posed a question regarding increased writing on blogs and through email. He 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?). Birkerts shows us his dark prediction of the fate of the English language. Email is just the medium he is critiquing, voicing his opinion that the more we communicate than the less we actually have to say.
Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, gives relatively solid advice, which supports many of Birkerts’ claims. While many of the two men’s ideas are not directly related, the opposition to technology is at the core of both arguments. Kaczynski’s argument relates to the creation of technology with the waning of the private self, which in most cases has proved to be true. The Internet and email are both about connecting to each other and spreading of ideas. The development of all communications in the past has served this purpose the purpose of allowing ourselves to have that connection with someone else. Whatever effects this constant need to communicate is will not be known in these next few decades, but will seen centuries in the future.
Still, it appears that Bikerts and Kaczynski are not being critical without observing such behaviors. Almost every college student who communicates on the Internet has seen the phrases “LOL” or “BRB.” These acronyms may not have originally represented much but were eventually out into everyday language, something which I have personally witnessed. This new vocabulary 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”, researchers examine the differences in Jamaican language through blogs and email by translating 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 has changed as a result of their increased use of the Internet and email. Email has made it so they are able to communicate within their own people as well as communities around the world. This change in the dialect of the Jamaican culture represents a shift in cultural attitudes and changes within the structure of their speech, which is due in part to the increased knowledge and exposure to the Internet.
It is still unclear what the effects of this new technological age will have on the spoken and written word will be, but we cannot dismiss the assertion that this deterioration we are laying witness to may be part of a natural cycle. When thinking about the evolution of language, there is no denying that, overall, we do not speak with the same eloquence that was prevalent in the seventeenth century. However, it is important to note, a significantly fewer people had the means or resources to write at that time. Now, many more people in the contemporary world have the opportunity to express themselves and their opinions, which could, according to Birkerts lead to the deterioration of written eloquence. It is unfair, however to assume that every person with a Blogger account or any person drafting an email would input the same attention to detail that was used while drafting the great literary works of the past.
It is hard to determine what the best solution would be in regard to email and the innovations that may come with these new communicated technologies. On one hand, email does help our communities stay connected and interact on a new level, allow relationships to occur where would have otherwise not and they create a medium for the easy distribution of ideas and information. On the other hand all of this progress could not occur without paying a price, the price being the deterioration of the English language and of our increased dependency on technology in general. What may carry the most weight the fact is that these technologies are here to stay. It is unlikely that we will be eliminating email and the Internet in the near future. Our communities have become so dependent on the use of email and other developing communication technologies that it would break down most of the organizations that rely on them today. While we should look towards the positive, we should also be wary of the effect email is having on the emerging generation and attempt to make it have the least negative impact on future generations.
Citations:
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.
Funk, John. "Review: Second Skin." Rev. of Second Skin. The Escapist 7 Aug. 2009. Print.
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.
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