Is Email Destroying Mankind?

Now that the tech stocks have taken a bath, and the Old Economy doesn’t look so bad anymore, I now have the courage to weigh-in on something that most people think is the best new thing since the pony express: E-Mail.

I just don’t get it, and never have. Sure, I have an e-mail address. I don’t want one, but I need it because there are a few people I know who communicate these days only by e-mail. Here’s my question. What’s wrong with the telephone, voicemail, and answering machines? Old Economy, antiquated stuff is the answer you’ll get from the e-mail junkies. “O.K.,” let’s compare the two. COST - Granted that e-mail is only a local call away and you can send something to Istanbul from Reno for a few cents. Long distance overseas has come down, but it is still more expensive. Advantage: E-mail. Calling within the U.S. though, even long distance, has come down so sharply and will continue to come down that this cost advantage in the U.S. is quickly eroding. Still, to be fair, Advantage: E-mail. SPEED - Maybe one out of a million people can type as fast as they can talk. So, to type an e-mail, particularly a three or four-pager, is far slower than picking up the phone and actually conversing with a live person who can instantly respond to your remarks. Even if the person is not there, we have wonderful things like voicemail and answering machines that accomplish much more quickly the same thing that e-mail does laboriously. I thought that technology was supposed to simplify my life. How is this an advancement over the telephone and voicemail? It seems to me to be a retrogression. With the ubiquitous cell phone, it’s far more convenient than lugging your lap-top around. Advantage: Phone. EFFECTIVENESS - Is it more convenient to send an e-mail, get a reply a day later, send a counter back, get another reply, and this may go on for days, or pick up the phone and hash it out in 15 or 20 minutes complete with passion, emphasis, and nuance that only the voice can do, not the written word? E-mail to me is akin to going back to the telegraph and trashing the phone. The only advantage I can see for e-mail is that you can do it from your home as opposed to going to a Western Union office. Otherwise, what’s the advantage? Advantage: Phone. Culture - It seems to me that a lot of people hide behind e-mail because it is much less confrontational than actually speaking to someone. Is this a good thing, though? We are gregarious, garrulous beings by nature and social interaction with others is a positive thing both physically and emotionally, not to mention spiritually. Why retrograde into a more cloistered, isolated setting with e-mail? How is this an advance? Why do you think they put people into solitary confinement? It’s a punishment. Think of that the next time you are by yourself, haven’t spoken to anyone in several hours, but you’re typing out those e-mails till your carpels start tunneling into a syndrome. How many prisoners would choose solitary confinement with e-mail versus staying in the general population without it? Maybe one in a million, and that person I guarantee you would need a few years on a shrink’s couch. Advantage: Phone.

Oral communication and social interaction is who we are, why go back to the cave? Think about the people who developed all of this. Let’s be charitable and say that it was not the captain of the basketball team or the captain of the softball team, or the person who plays the lead in Grease. It was geeky, socially awkward nerds who instead of going to the dance Friday night were writing code alone in their room until 3 AM. Amazingly, these people have changed our culture. Are these the people we want changing our culture? I think not. Look, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs seem like good guys, but I don’t think they would score very highly on any test judging sociability and extroversion. Now, introverts are people too. But, do we want a nation of them? Do we want them as our sociologists changing the way we behave and interact? Of course, not. Advantage: Phone BUSINESS - I was dismayed to read a few months ago that Jack Welch, the legendary CEO and former Chairman of GE, was now sending his own e-mails when he was at GE. He was finally bullied into it by Scott McNealy, CEO and Chairman of Sun Microsystems who sits on the GE board. Now, as a shareholder of GE, I do not want my CEO wasting his valuable time doing this. I want him dictating letters much more quickly to his secretary just like in the old days, or better yet, dictating it into a hand-held machine and leaving the tapes for the secretary. How is e-mail more convenient for Jack Welch, how does it free up his valuable time, when he spends 30-60 minutes depending on his typing ability sending a seven page memo? Dictate it in 10-15 minutes, let the secretary type it up and mail it or fax it or even e-mail it!

In my last real job, my boss, the President of the Company, took great pride in predicting that several years from now there would be no secretaries because they wouldn’t be needed. He was proud of the fact that he could type 50-60 words a minute and did all of his own memos by e-mail. I often times would walk into his office and catch him in the middle of a three to five-pager. Why wasn’t he talking to customers, why wasn’t he out visiting the plants and the employees? He was holed up in his office just like the sophomore nerd on a Friday night. Look, before you think I’m a Luddite, I am for every technological change that either enhances life or frees up our time to do things we enjoy. ATM’s and fax machines are wondrous. No more bank visits and fewer trips to the mail box or post office. But, this e-mail thing is just not a big advance except for cost and that is fading away.

Next time you have a big presentation to a potential customer in New York, forget the plane ride and the hotel costs and dinner with them the night before, and tell them you’ll e-mail them the presentation since that is the most cost effective, modern way of doing things - and watch your competitor establish a relationship with this customer and get the business. Advantage: Phone.

E-mail has its place. Sending a memo to all 35,000 employees in an instant or “communicating” at 3 AM with someone in Singapore. But, please, revolutionary? “Come here, Watson, I need you.” Now that was revolutionary. Try e-mailing 911 the next time you need help.