I think these days we still travel to be close to those we want badly enough to have face-to-face communication with, but we’ve gotten lazier because it doesn’t seem as necessary anymore. But I find the parallels between super slow, fairly unreliable written messages traveling by land and super fast but also not so reliable email traveling by bandwidth pretty amusing.

Maybe the point here is that post, email, and phone are not substitutes for personal interaction and we need to remember not to treat them as such.

It’s been fucking UNBELIEVABLE to me how many people (including my own MOTHER, who hardly even knows HOW to use the internet!) have responded to my “I don’t have a computer anymore, please CALL me, don’t email!” messages BY EMAILING ME. Also, a lot of people tell me they just “don’t call” people…well, what happened before email? Smoke signals? Messenger owls?

I think we’ve collectively forgotten how to interact with other humans and I DON’T LIKE IT.

@Charlie: You’re exactly right. I was focusing on the psychological funk of a perceived obligation to reply, but the psychological funk of a big pile of unread email is a factor to consider as well. Thanks for your comment! *gets her psychological funk on*

@Megan: Yeah!

@Tanya: Thanks! You’re right about treating your friends like coworkers. That’s definitely something I don’t want to do or advocate. Your phrasing is much better, thanks!

@Oliver: You’re right! I totally made the usual error! It’s important to keep in mind that others’ email practices and email-checking frequency can be very different than your own.

At my last job, everyone had a crackberry strapped to them at all times, even in meetings, which drove me crazy. Hello? We’re having a 15 minute meeting; you can check your email when you get back to your desk!

And now we’ve found one of MY pet peeves. :)

Interesting.

My general rule that I operate on is, when I have consistent, regular internet access, it is reasonable to expect that I will receive and have time to respond to the message if, and ONLY if, ALL of the following conditions are met
-48 hours between the time the email was sent and the time I will need to do something about it
-the message clearly states the time frame in which I am expected to respond
-the sender gets a response from me stating that I have read the email and agree to respond by the time they’ve requested.

Basically…it is not my responsibility to check my email. I don’t have a job where checking email is a requirement of my position. If someone expects me to have information, it is their responsibility to make sure I get the information. If someone sends me an email, they do not know that I have the information that they sent in the email unless I respond and tell them. Sometimes emails get lost. Sometimes people accidentally hit the wrong button and delete their emails. A zillion technological glitches can prevent an email from being received, even if I AM checking my email every five minutes.

The other day, my friend was supposed to go to a baby shower. They changed the location of the event and emailed all the guests about it at 9am, the same day as the event which was scheduled for the afternoon. My friend doesn’t have a car and had to leave her house quite early, definitely did not get the email, and wandered around a strange town for quite some time before she finally reached the hosts and found out the event had been moved. THIS HAPPENS TO PEOPLE ALL THE TIME.

This is one of my biggest peeves in the whole world. Can you tell? ;-)

-Oliver, who is on a classmate’s computer and cannot be reasonably expected to receive ANY emails in ANY kind of timely manner at this time due to not having a computer.

As to “I need to know this by [date],” I don’t like to lay that out there without a reason because the way I say it, it feels like I’m treating my friends like I’m their professor or their boss.

I prefer to say “if you can tell me [stuff] before [event on date], I’ll be able to [do something using the information you gave me].” It’s a way of sharing the goal with them and, if they buy into the goal, they may help out. If they don’t buy into the goal, that’s cool, too. But I’m making it explicit that this is for that goal, not just a general obligation because I’m asking them to do it.

Well, if I want to attach a questionnaire to every email, maybe… :D But the gist is really good. Definitely something to remember to include!

Perhaps I dissent a little bit on this point: “you probably haven’t negatively influenced the recipient’s life in any way other than perhaps wasting 30 seconds of their time.” The time piece is a part of the problem, but it’s not the whole problem. Given that most of us don’t know how long it’ll take to get through and process email, it has a tendency to pile up on us. The psychological funk of having 100 unread (or unprocessed) email is far greater than the summed 50 minutes it would take to do something with them (presuming the theoretical 30 second benchmark).

Maybe a better way to say this: each email added to the pile increases the funk of the pile. So while my emails may only take 10 seconds to process, it’s the fact that I’ve added to the pile that’s a part of the issue, as well. Did I need to add to the pile? is what I’ve said make up for the sum badness of adding to the pile plus the time it takes to read and process it?

I’m a huge fan of to the point and meaningful communication. It’s a shame that even those attempts to respect and spread value also come with their share of disvalue, too.

I feel like I’m being rude by not responding to every e-mail, ever livejournal comment, every text message. But I also feel bad if my information is wrong. For example: “I’ll try to stop by tomorrow” but what if I don’t have the car tomorrow? What if I say I’ll call if I can’t make it but I leave my phone at home? What if I say I’m going to come and in the stress of getting from class to class and picking up my grandmother and dropping off my brothers I just totally forget? And how can I say “I’m not sure how available I’ll be?” Doesn’t that sound like I’m putting them low on my priority list?!

At any given time half the non-advertizment/forum alert messages in my in-box have a red “Draft” next to them, indicating that I have started a reply but not sent it or finished writing it. Usually, I’ll try to reply within 48 hours, even if a reply is giving me freak outs. Freakouts fort me come especially often in cases of plans being made, because I tend to get really flaky about transportation since I usually can’t provide it for myself.

It’s also worth noting that I do tend to keep a reply to my e-mails streaming through my head over the course of the day. It’s not until bed-time that I can finally calm down and finalize a draft I’ve been working on since 8am. I’m pretty sure I fall into the category of people who stress way too much over replying to stuff. :)