Archive for June 6th, 2008



Email versus Instant Messaging

June 6th, 2008 by Gregory Silvano Posted in Technology | No Comments »

I am all for advancements in communication technology, but I have to admit my dislike for instant messengers has reached the tipping point.

Email’s great.  I can push an email to the side and answer on my terms.  Email conversations are threaded by nature.  They can be archived and forwarded easily.  I can attach relevant files.  All good.

But an IM is like a phone call.  You have to answer it right now or that window will keep blinking at you.  And you’re expected to answer immediately (it is instant messaging, after all).  It interrupts and annoys.

But there’s more than that.  I get emails immediately wherever I am.  I get them on my PC, on my laptop, and on my Blackberry within seconds.  But your IM may sit on my PC for hours, waiting for me to get back to my PC.  Ironically, your email is much more instant than your instant message.

My nephew (19 years old) told me that he doesn’t email unless he has to talk to “old people”.  Like for the bank.  He thinks of email the same as I think of a fax: archaic and clumsy.   If it weren’t for eFax I’d never fax again.  But that’s how he thinks of email.  For him, logging into email is the same as me firing up the fax machine.  It’s something to do when there’s no other choice.

It’s hard to imagine what’s next.  Snail mail to fax to email to IM to texting to Twitter to…?  I’m not sure.  It’ll be something related to mobile devices and will probably debut on the iPhone somehow.

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