Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!micor!isishq!testsys!doug
From: isishq!testsys!doug (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Paperless office
Message-ID: <137629973DN5.35B@testsys.uucp>
Date: Sat, 06 Oct 90 17:21:08 
References: <9010031156.AA26927@encore.encore.com> <542181945DN5.35B@testsys.uucp> <27575@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: SKAN Communications Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 50

In article <27575@bellcore.bellcore.com> 
(Scott Duncan) writes: 

> Again, the problem is people.  I have a good deal of local experience with peo-
> ple who have e-mail access and feel that you have to be very careful what kind
> of communication you send this way.  Perhaps formal communications can be un-
> derstood better than informal ones; however, e-mail is most often used for
> the latter.  In these cases, what you say in e-mail does NOT come out sounding
> the same as if you said it in person.

Right you are. I think it is not very useful to compare any written
medium, regardless of mode of transmission, with a spoken medium. What
you write and what you say *are* quite different, and writing can
never replace speaking.

But when e-mail is compared with other forms of writing, on paper,
transmitted by other technologies, post, courier, FAX, I think e-mail
comes out quite well. The paper is often not an essential element of
the written message, though I fully concede that  *sometimes* the fact
of it being "on paper" has considerable psychological impact.

> I guess, I am arguing that what you suggest is a more reasonable use of e-mail
> compared to how it is currently used.  However, the model of use is different
> at this point in time.  The technology is unquestionably there, but are people
> prepared to use it and accept its use in these ways?

I agree with your argument. I guess my 'argument' is that the
technical capacity is there and there are forces at work in society
which encourage changes in public attitudes. Remember, automobiles
took quite a while to become 'acceptable'. In the end, the technical
and economic advantages eroded public resistence. People (especially
people as populations) usually  resist change. But when a new
technology, or a new use of an old technology has real practical and
economic advantages, it tends to advance in popular acceptance until a
kind of threshold is reached, after which opponents usually accept
that regardless of the fact they don't like (autos for instance) it.
I hate autos. I *loathe* autos. Every time I drive my
car I curse it, and curse the seven sisters . . . but I still use it.
There are many applications for which it is simply the 'best' or
'only' technology available.

I really do prefer horses . . . 

So the question I guess is: are e-mail and other forms of electronic
text sufficiently better than paper to do to paper, in the end, what
the auto did to the horse? My hunch is that they are.

=Doug


---
----------------------------------------------------------------------
{...} watmath!isishq!doug
doug@isishq.fidonet.org