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From: gt2783c@prism.gatech.edu (Douglas J. Katz)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Email / VoiceMail / Phone
Message-ID: <1028@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 23 Jul 90 18:26:40 GMT
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I don't understand why we are comparing voice mail with e-mail.  I
recall a similar discussion about 15 years ago.  Some pundit in the
newspaper was lamenting the demise of the personal letter.  He mentioned
the romance of a love letter, the value of a pack of correspondence
saved over a lifetime to the historian, and the special feeling one got
upon receiving a letter in the mail.

He mentioned how lazy we were becoming as a society because, instead of
putting pen to paper and composing a letter, spending the extra time to
compose our thoughts, we would simply pick up a phone and babble.
Sounds like something James Kirpatrick would discuss.

Now we are deep into the computer age and we are comparing e-mail with
phone mail.  In light of the above, the comparison seems considerably
less meaningful.  Each has its own purpose and each allows the
personality of the sender to be transmitted.  Email doesn't restrict the
range of thought or emotion any more than pen and paper restricts the
thought and emotion of a love letter.  Phone mail permits as much
composition and editing of the message as one is capable in a prepared
speech.

Each medium is as useful as the sender is willing to make it.  If you
know your purpose in contacting the other person, then you should have
no trouble communicating your thoughts.

Doug Katz