Hmmm, I guess email decreases the ambulatory functions of the body. But he didn't even think of calling me up (we do have a telephone in each office).
I just can't understand why people do this. It takes all the fun out of communication. You talk to a keyboard and screen than a person. All that a person becomes is a mail alias. As a saying on the net goes - You must be a graduate student if you talk to your roommate using email.
email is great! email is free! email can be read when wanted! email can be sent to 100 at a time!
email is definitely great. But it still is text on a terminal. I can never express myself properly when writing emails inspite of having good writing skills (ok! ok! if not good atleast passable). I have to add punctuations like !! or @#@$#$#@$ or the good old smileys ( :-) ;-) ) to describe my feelings when i am writing something. So i dont actually concentrate on what I am saying but rather on whether i am using the right comments so that the other person does not misunderstand me. Its just too artificial a medium for anything other than impersonal factual data messages.
Agreed, its just not possible to talk to everyone personally. Graham Bell to the rescue. I think even talking on the phone is enough for lots of reasons. Though you cant read the face you can still read the voice. I like to talk to people on the phone rather than email. Text on screen paints a completely different picture of the person. It takes a very experienced person to read emails (I mean estimating the personality based on emails). The only advantage of email is the avoidance of freudian slip, which is good when you want to make sure your boss does not misunderstand you, but not when you are talking to your boyfriend.
I long for those undergraduate days, back in India when i used to walk into professors offices. I still try to do that unless the professors drive me away (dont tell these things to my professors please!). A spoken sentence is worth 100 written sentences!
I dont hate email in general. Actually its like IV feed without which i actually feel restless and irritated (classical symptoms of addiction). I guess i will be getting a taste of the withdrawl symptoms when i go back home and dont have access to email. I subscribe to around 5 or 6 mailing lists (jokes, news headlines, software discussion lists) just so that i have something to read daily. But my heart leaps up when i behold the ringing of the telephone....