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Are you on vacation? Can I go with you? | 2 comments
[new] E-mail as a stealth time-based medium (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#2)
by amy on Fri Aug 29th, 2003 at 12:33:24 AM EURODISCORDIA TIME
(User Info) http://plagiarist.org

Amongst the administrators in my immediate surroundings the question is being asked, what it would be like to not have a keyboard, and access to the Internet for 2 weeks. Turn off the mobile and be gone. I often wonder if it is possible, even thinkable. But I don't really want to know!

When I hear people say things like that, I'm often curious exactly what they mean. I find I don't have any problem of conscience slipping into an offline state, assuming servers are being tended to, etc... But the problem is the queue that builds up when I'm offline. Sure, some stuff can be deleted without responding, but there's always a lengthy queue of stuff I'm obligated to deal with that builds up. This didn't seem to be the case in the days before e-mail - I'd return to a job after vacation and sure, there'd be a small pile of things that needed doing, but nothing like the pile that accumulates of email.

My theory is that e-mail personalizes responsibilty - and it also is perceived strangely with respect to time. In the "old days" if I was on vacation and someone phoned for me, co-workers would say "she's on vacation" and things would get dealt with by someone else. Even after voicemail arrived, callers didn't typically leave me a long message to deal with after my return, realizing they were speaking in a time-based medium and that I'd have to listen to a lenghty string of messages - they'd find someone else or another way of dealing with it. But e-mail is another ballgame. People can easily leave a long e-mail message without feeling guilty. After all, when I get back to my inbox, I'll only see an innocent looking one-line representing that message. Even when I open it, it will just be a page on my screen. The perception of the time it takes to read and deal with messages gets mitigated in the email format - even though they typically take longer to deal with than their telephone and peoplespace counterparts.

Is this just a function of the newness of email communication? Will people eventually come to appreciate email messages as taking time - as they do with reading books, etc? Or will the fact that email is displayed in space rather than time continue to keep it a stealth time-based medium? (And therefore, an oppressive capitalist tool for subduing the masses by keeping them snowed under working for others - I always like to throw that one in wherever I can, you know.. :-) )


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-- Discordia is nice.
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Are you on vacation? Can I go with you? | 2 comments
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