Hello everyone. My name is Jason Feldman and I’m a sophomore in the Industrial and Labor Relations School here at Cornell. I’m from a suburb of Rochester NY which is about an hour and a half drive from Ithaca. Despite how close I live to Cornell, I was shocked at the winter weather my freshman year. Maybe it’s my imagination due to that long trek to central campus from north, but I can’t remember ever being as cold and damp as I was last December and January. That being said, the sledding conditions were unparalleled and I only appreciated the sunshine that much more when it finally did arrive towards the end of second semester.
Being part of the Internet generation, we grew up learning the nuances of cyber communication and becoming fluent in mediums like instant messaging, browsing the web, uploading digital photos, and all other things computers. However, one aspect of this new online dialect that, unlike my peers, I never mastered until recently was email.
Email is not considered a new online environment. According to Wallace, it falls under the classification of electronic mail, and rivals the web as the most vital technology of the Internet era. My first email account was the one that was supplied by Cornell University through uportal just one short year ago. It didn’t take me long to understand why using email was indispensable to my academic life; after all, how many professors do we know that would give out there cell phone numbers to their students so they could call them every time they had a question about an assignment? Email is not only more rational, but more efficient as well. However, unlike most, the only mail I got in my inbox were emails from Denise Cassaro and other such list serve items, messages about classes from professors, and the occasional facebook notice that let me know that the kid that sits next to me in my writing seminar just sent me a friend request. Email never entered into the personal arena for me (outside of facebook), and as such my cell phone contact list was much larger than my saved gmail, yahoo, and hotmail addresses.
After reflecting on why I make the unconscious distinction between what medium of communication I use depending on a given situation, I realized that in general, the people that I get more enjoyment talking to I use my cell phone to call. Email is advantageous due to the fact that it provides you with a forum that you can communicate carefully thought out ideas and messages with the most minimal interaction possible. People tend to email instead of call when they feel they are in an awkward situation. After all, how awkward can someone really be via email? Not only do they not have to here the other persons voice or see them face to face, but they get to strategically plan out word for word what they are going to say beforehand. While now it is virtually unheard of and embarrassing to end relationships using email, perhaps someday soon people will be sending messages entitled: “I think we should just be friends.”
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3 comments:
Hi Jason,
I found your post interesting for a couple different reasons. First, I'm from Fairport, New York and I always love meeting new people from around my hometown!
Second, I find it intriguing that the Cornell e-mail address you received last year is the first you've ever had. I would assume you're among the few. You do bring up a good point, though, about getting more enjoyment talking to people on the phone/in person than sending an e-mail. I think one reason why I send e-mails is that it's often hard to find a time to talk to my best friends who are at other schools. We all lead such busy lives, and times that are convenient for me to talk just don't work with their schedules. E-mail solves this problem because I can write whenever I have a chance, and they can read and respond when they're free. I can also send the same e-mail to multiple people, avoiding the possibility of telling the exact same story four different times. I guess it comes down to personal preference.
Jason, I agree with your view of email as a solution to awkward situations, as its asynchronous nature makes it more acceptable to ignore an email. Compared to synchronous instant messages, audio chat, and online games, an email receiver can easily ignore messages with a lessened obligation to reply. It would be rude to never reply to a synchronous instant message or video conference request, which may only create further awkwardness. However, email can always be overlooked, and if approached about not responding to an email, a user can easily deny receiving the message with one of many excuses. The receiver can claim he or she never received it, hasn’t checked their email, accidentally deleted the message, etc… Some excuses are believable (email sometimes does get lost) and thus may help to ease the tension, if both parties feel its best to believe the email was never sent (and ignore a heated email), they may believe whatever excuse used.
In addition to the many excuses for not receiving an email, the expected turnaround can be very long, possibly two weeks for very busy inboxes. The delay helps to ease the awkwardness between the parties, and by the time a reply is sent, both parties may have cooler heads.
Hey, Jason. I agree with the benefits you have named associated with emailing. It may definitely be advantageous for people to use email if the face to face situation will be awkward, if they want as little interaction as possible, or if they want the ability to carefully plan out their thoughts before delivering them. I thought you addressed a good point when you briefly commented on how you save talking on the phone for those with whom you more enjoy speaking. A main difference that I see between phone calls and emails involves the person on the receiving end. Though emailing a friend is an option, and can be used depending on the situation, I find that I rarely email friends. I prefer to speak on the phone and have an actual synchronous conversation with the people to whom I am closest. Email can often be reserved for more formal types of communication—asking a professor a question or firming up details with a prospective employer. In these types of situation, people often want to make sure that their thoughts are organized and clearly worded, which email allows. Though this differentiation in the formality between emailing and talking on the phone is clearly not always the case, I think it is an important point to consider when looking at the function of email.
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