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Electronic mail, as described by Jacque Leslie, is "like a phone call only written. It's like a paperless letter, but faster. It's like a casual conversation, or a postcard, or a scribbled note to a schoolmate in the middle of class" (Wired 2.03) More than that, it is "all of the above, and, considering its ethereal nature, none of them;whoever has printed out a pleasing e-mail message discovers that on the page it is rendered lifeless like an exquisite tropical fish removed from its tank" (Leslie). Leslie's rhapsodic description of e-mail is fascinating in that as soon as the message is printed out, it loses its 'magic.'
E-mail has been lauded as "the next quantum step toward human freedom," as well as a technology that "flattens hierarchies [and] promotes teamwork" (Leslie).
How can the hard-copy of an e-mail message--a fish out of water--be so different from its handwritten or typed counterpart, the letter? Here, it might be useful to examine the similarities and differences between e-mail messages and the physical letter.
Both are ostensibly text-based means of communication, yet one (e-mail) exists only in the ethereal world of cyberspace. An e-mail message has no physical quality like a letter or a book--one can easily destroy an e-mail message forever with the click of a mouse (Leslie). While a letter may take days to reach it's destination via the Post Office, an electronic message reaches its destination in seconds.
Indeed, electronic mail is very much a mystery, even to those who use it on a daily basis. While it is safe to assume that most of us understand the workings of "snail mail," what happens to an e-mail message after pressing `send' remains hidden from view. When someone sends a letter, they can drop it in a mailbox, check to see that it was deposited properly, and know that a (presumably) reliable human postal worker will pick it up, place it in his or her bag, and so on. An e-mail message, on the other hand, zips through local phone lines and host computers untouched by the familiar human hand. An interesting paradox results in the popular notion that it is easier to tamper with electronic mail than postal mail. Still, electronic mail continues to rise in popularity--it is remarkably convenient, and inexpensive. One must not also forget the novelty and fun many users feel when sending a message electronically as opposed to the `old-fashioned' way.
"The growth of e-mail is undeniable" (Leslie). Get the facts.
Despite these differences, e-mail retains many of the visual attributes of a physical letter, thus legitimizing its use as an effective means of communication. For example, every e-mail message sent has an addressee, a return address, a "postmark" (the routing information beneath the subject line), body text, and in some cases, a signature. The e-mail signature is particularly interesting, as it retains the authority and individuality of a handwritten signature, often by means of a unique or obscure quote. Another interesting part of the e-mail message is the subject line, similar to the "Re:" header found in many office memos. The ability to prioritize e-mail by subject line is an important difference to note, as it enhances a feeling of convenience and efficiency. Author Douglas Coupland elaborates on this point, in his novel, Microserfs:
"Typically, everybody has about a 40 percent immediate cull rate--those pieces of mail you can delete immediately because of a frivolous tag line. What you read of the remaining 60 percent depends on how much of a life you have. The less of a life, the more mail you read" (Coupland 22).
E-mail has also had a profound impact on social interactions in environments where e-mail is the prevalent mode of communication, such as a large office complex. Leslie notes that e-mail "has occasioned an astonishing effusion of . . . social interaction . . . yet at work it is the medium of choice for employees who don't like each other" (Wired 2.03). Coupland again illustrates the point: "The cool thing with e-mail is that when you send it, there's no possibility of connecting with the person on the other end. It's better than phone answering machines, because . . . the person on the other line might actually pick up the phone and you might have to talk" (21-22).
One of Leslie's most intriguing statements about the effects of electronic mail relates to the interaction between e-mail and a post-literate oral culture. In his words, "for all [of e-mail's] apparent magic, in some ways [it] reaches backwards." He claims that "e-mail is written, yet its language typically embodies a shift toward oral speech patterns." He explains, drawing from an unpublished essay by Brenda Denat, that the language of e-mail messages are far more similar to actual speech than formalized writing. E-mail messages are replete with abbreviations and informal constructions (such as "gonna"), and, due to the more hasty nature of their authorship, often contain typos and grammatical errors (Leslie).
In Leslie's analysis, "e-mail reflects a yearning to trade in the formality of writing for the spontaneity of speech. As Denat says, the impulse that led to writing was partly a desire to make permanent what in oral language was permeable and ephemeral." He goes on to proclaim that with e-mail, there is a reversal underway--that "we've devised a written medium that partly undermines the assumptions of writing, that evokes the uncertanties of oral culture" (Leslie). In a culture radically invested in the maintenance of the legitimacy of the printed word, Leslie's statements seem almost revolutionary. It seems to be an odd case of putting-the-cart-before-the-horse that, as a culture, we should reclaim aspects of our oral heritage by essentially reinventing notions of literacy through use of the written text.
