Drowning in email

Never let it be said I am not kultured. I love reading. I always have, my apartment is stuffed to the gills with books – all sorts, reference, trash, bios, novels, sports, comedy, niche stuff. But much like the rest of the civilised world I have transitioned to ebooks, and now have 300+ titles on my Kindle – yes I still use this contraption. However this weekend I was killing time in a book shop and picked up an actual book, made of pages.

The book in question is called The Tyranny of Email, by John Freeman, the title summarised my feelings on one of life’s constant struggles; email. The tyrannical hold this horrid invention has over us all.

I will say I have not finished the book yet, but am a good chunk into it. It makes for fascinating reading outlining the birth and development of communication, particularly the written (or typed) word.

There are a lot of lessons for people on how they manage and deal with the constant onslaught of emails and electronic communication. Plus the negative effect this continual bombardment has on our ‘real’ relationships. Shedding some serious light on the way we deal with email 24/7 as opposed to forming meaningful relationships. It seems to be a deluge of information and communication, that we have to sprint to keep up with. Surely this isn’t healthy? 

I have a friend who hates email to the point where he does not have an account, is not plugged in all day long. He does his business the old fashioned way in person or on the phone. Guess what? He does very well, has a lot more time to himself and has a thriving business. Might be a lesson there? (however, he may well miss out on that $716m fortune that has been discovered in his name in Nigeria, but thems the breaks!).

Go and grab this book or at least download it, we all collectively need to get a grip on ourselves. Email does have its place but it is about how we manage this and how we must prioritise human connections and not rely upon bouncing cryptic message back and forth when a 2 minute call will cure all. So check it out and if nothing else, quit hitting ‘reply all’. The delete button is your friend.