So now email's out of date too?! - Michael's essay

The young radio host was beseeching her audience to get in touch with the program.

Listeners could text her, she said, they could call a certain number, they could send a postal letter;  she paused, then said; "Or you can get in touch by old-fashioned email."

Whoa. What? Old-fashioned email? If email is now old-fashioned, what about the rest of technology?

I am a supporter of high tech even though I may have come late to the party and have no idea how any of it works... I own and use an iPod, an iPad, a laptop, noise cancelling earphones which have changed my life and a Fitbit thing to goad me into walking 10,000 steps a day like the grim-visaged  80-year-old Norwegian.- Michael Enright. 

If email is now old-fashioned, the mailed letter is as ancient as a dinosaur's tooth — pre-prehistoric. If email is old fashioned, I must be this year's Edsel — note to my children, look it up.

Email began in an early crude form in 1972, not exactly the Palaeozoic Era. 

Now this is not a rant about technology, believe me I am no Luddite. And just because I can remember The Lone Ranger on radio doesn't necessarily betoken early symptoms of Old Fartism. I am a supporter of high tech even though I may have come late to the party and have no idea how any of it works.

But I am happily, thoroughly on board. I own and use an iPod, an iPad, a laptop, noise cancelling earphones which have changed my life and a Fitbit thing to goad me into walking 10,000 steps a day like the grim-visaged  80-year-old Norwegian.

How long does it take for something new to be set out on the remainder table in the rain like the rotary dial phone or the typewriter? Both of which I mastered easily and early, by the way.

Email has been a great boon to the modern era. It has allowed us to communicate with each other over continents and oceans in the time it takes a salmon to blink. It lets the indolent among us write letters to all without the botheration of handwriting, buying an envelop and stamps and marching off in vain search for a mail box.

At the same time, it imposes its own universe of rules and protocols. There are some downsides.

For instance, people expect their every email to be answered post haste. Every single one. Failure to do so brings a flood of emails asking why you haven't responded to earlier missives.

And then there is the attendant danger that in responding in an aggressive or nasty email, you hit reply all instead of reply.

And emails are forever. No matter what you said or when you said it, someone will sooner or later find them no matter how long it takes.

It's called the Clinton Conundrum.

A very good friend has just taken up the practice of emails. She is in her nineties and is whip smart. She can spot a sophistry at a thousand yards. 

At first she cast a cold eye on the whole idea of email. She is the product of a more sophisticated era where people took pride in sending and receiving handwritten letters. But she has taken some email lessons and though a touch nervous about plunging in up to her neck, is moving forward.

One risks serious physical injury by calling her old-fashioned.

Click the button above to hear Michael's essay.