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Eulogy for the long, intimate email

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Interesting, well-done article.  People prioritized email when there
were few other options (and Usenet was similar, but public).  Now there
are other options, and after drowning in it at work, who wants it?  I
can relate, too, having spent ten years getting 100+ emails per day (of
which, 98+ were carbon copies).  Bleah.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/style/a-eulogy-for-the-long-intimate-email.html

When I started college in 1997, I got my first email account, as did
most of my peers. Over the next four years, I sent and received
countless rambling letters to friends, both off and on campus, a habit
that persisted for a decade or so after graduation.

Now I can’t remember the last time I wrote or read an email of more than
four or five meaty, intimate paragraphs. I can chalk up some of my
letter-writing decline to my age and profession: I have a (somewhat)
smaller appetite these days for Knausgaardian navel-gazing, and expend
more energy writing for work.

My decreased reliance on personal email, however, may correspond with
global trends. According to the Radicati Group, a technology marketing
firm, business email users now send and receive an average of 122
messages per day, up from 110 in 2010. Sealing and opening all those
virtual envelopes takes a toll: A 2012 report from McKinsey found that
workers spent 28 percent of their day on email.

While the numbers cannot account for how many emails are personal, it
stands to reason that few sent on business accounts are — and that
people are often too exhausted from the relentless inundation to compose
meaningful letters.

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Eulogy for the long, intimate email RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-07-11 14:55 +0000
  Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> - 2015-07-12 09:53 -0400
    Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-07-12 17:37 -0300
      Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-07-13 18:48 +0000
        Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-07-14 03:49 -0300
      Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Andy Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2015-07-13 19:55 +0100
        Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-07-14 03:51 -0300
          Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Andy Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2015-07-14 08:14 +0100
            Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-07-14 11:39 +0200
            Re: Eulogy for the long, intimate email Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-07-14 18:05 -0300

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