E-mail, or electronic messages, can be argued as one of the fastest growing and most widely used sources of communication on the planet. Whether just idle chatter with a close friend or colleague, or a mass e-mail out to the entire company, e-mail can be used for a variety of different reasons and it is estimated that nearly half of the world’s population currently uses or has an e-mail address, (LifeWire).
The world can be viewed as constantly connected thanks to technology and the access to information. This view is believed by inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, who stated in his autobiography, “In an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else. We can think of a dictionary as the repository of meaning, but it defines words only in terms of other words,” (Weaving the Web). This belief that everything is connected is an odd, but very interesting way of thinking. Even though we do not necessarily have everyone e-mail address or phone number, anyone who has a phone or an e-mail address has access to us or a means of communication with us. Berners-Lee thinks that because the Web is constantly growing, only our minds will follow because the access to countless amounts of information is so easily available.
When Ray Tomlinson began messing with computers and the note system that was available for leaving notes on another keyboard, he wanted to bring to fruition the ability to electronic send another computer a message that was not connected by the same server. He hit his Eureka. And the world has responded. According to LifeWire Statistics, there are nearly 3.5 billion different e-mails out there. This statistic is slightly misleading when taking into account the fact that many people (including myself) have more than one e-mail. But this site also allowed for some very specific statistics, like the fact that Gmail currently has nearly 1 billion accounts (LifeWire). With so many people possessing an e-mail address, information is so easily able to be spread in a massive way. If any notice that came to someones attention had to be sent to numerous people within seconds, e-mail allows any users to send a message to hundreds or thousands of recipients, making it one of the easiest modes of communication that we currently have. I think that because so many people have e-mail, communication will never be the same. I don’t think there is another app/technological feature that so many people on Earth possess, aside from many a phone number.
Being a medium where nearly any type of person can say what ever they want and sent it to whoever they want, e-mail is believed to not be as highly touted as other forms of communication. According to Vanessa K. Bohns, a writer for Harvard Business Review, face-to-face interaction is actually more effective in persuasion than e-mail is. “While e-mail grants the opportunity to send messages to a large amount of recipients, our studies showed that face-to-face conversation and interaction were more persuasive in getting people to fill out the survey than e-mail responders, there were 34 times more recipients,” (Bohns). People actually overestimated the amount of their persuasion through e-mail or text message because the messages were not as personal and it seemed to be sent through a mass e-mail chain that recipients can view. According to Bohns, e-mail users that sent the survey out were unable to persuade people to want to open a link from a mysterious user, while many people chose to fill out a survey from someone they did not know.
While Vanessa Bohn’s article proves that e-mail may not be as personal as in-person communication, it is extremely efficient when dispersing information. E-mail has changed the way people send and receive things. Now, all work-related things can be sent to a phone through an e-mail app and people can see that on the go. All of my job listings for Indeed or Glassdoor come through my e-mail. From here, only things can go up. In the future mass amounts of text are going to be able to be sent through e-mail with no limitations and information will spread faster than ever.
Email Annotated Bibliography
- Weaving the Web, by Tim Berners-Lee
- Tim Berners Lee – “Weaving the Web- The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web” 1999, Scribd, https://www.scribd.com/document/371687132/Tim-Berners-Lee-Weaving-the-Web-The-Original-Design-and-Ultimate-Destiny-of-the-World-Wide-Web-PDF-TKRG – Accessed 8 March 2019
1). Tim Berners-Lee is the author of this autobiography on himself and is essentially the sole inventor of the World Wide Web.
2). Berners-Lee’s thesis for this book is the creation of the web and how it came to fruition. One of his main claims is that the web’s evolution and its essence are inextricably linked. There was no “Eureka” moment when the Web came to be.
3). His intended audience is a more well-educated group of readers that wants to learn the truth about how the internet came to be. Being the inventor, there could be bias towards his work as opposed to others who work on the same type of things, but he proves a lot of other methods or people wrong, but that is because his information on the Web’s creation is much more factual and real.
4). The article is very lengthy and not designed to be read by everyone. Certainly, readers who have an interest in technology and the history of technology will be more inclined to read this autobiography because some terminology throughout might be very confusing to certain readers. But this book does contain facts from sources of a very high stature, because when it comes to the Internet, there is not much more accurate sources than Tim Berners-Lee.
5). The information from this source greatly strengthens my thesis. With my thesis being how important E-mail has been to the distribution of information and increase in communication, this article supports the growth and the importance of how the internet has increased all of these forms of communication.
6). This source is from 2000, so it is still very relevant to my tool because the internet and E-mail are constantly growing and the possibilities for both are endless.
- Lifewire Statistics
- Tschabitscher, Heinz. “Can You Guess How Many People Use Email Worldwide? (It’s Astonishing!).” Lifewire, Lifewire, 16 Dec. 2018, www.lifewire.com/how-many-email-users-are-there-1171213. Accessed 8 March 2019
1). No author- Lifewire provides statistics on email throughout the world.
2). The thesis for this source is the amount of electronic messaging users in the world, which is nearly 4 billion according to Lifewire, and how that number is constantly increasing.
3). The intended audience would be people that are curious on communication statistics around the world. Or just lovers of the internet who want to know more.
4). There could be bias when it comes to the number of users that the article provides. Being 4 billion people, I seriously doubt that there are that many email users, because a lot of users have more than one, and that is something that needs to be taken into account.
5). The article provides stats for nearly all important email sites, including gmail, outlook, etc. But the site points out that it could be projected to be much higher than the numbers it shows, which could mean that some of the information is inaccurate.
6). The information from this source will greatly increase the thesis of my proposal. Because I believe that email has changed the way the world has communicated, these stats will assist me in explaining that.
7). This material is very relevant to my paper because the world is constantly growing into a more technology dependent society and email is helping us communicate in a much more efficient way.
- Face to Face Request is 34 times More Successful Than Email, by Vanessa K. Bohns
- Bohns, Vanessa K. “A Face-to-Face Request Is 34 Times More Successful Than an Email.” Harvard Business Review, 26 Jan. 2018, hbr.org/2017/04/a-face-to-face-request-is-34-times-more-successful-than-an-email. Accessed 8 March 2019
1). Vanessa is a writer for Harvard Business Review and has written nearly 10 different articles over the span of 5 years.
2). The author claims that e-mail, while more far reaching than personal, face-to-face communication, is not as genuine and less likely to get people to join whatever cause you are looking for. Vanessa explains that even though it is believe that an e-mail blast would gain more responders, it is the personal communication that will reign in more people.
3). The intended audience for this article would most likely be well-educated people that read the Harvard Business Review and just people who want more information about technology and the benefits of it.
4). There seems to be no bias or slant in this article because they had conducted real studies and tests that had compelling results in favor of in person requests rather than email.
5). The article used a variety of sources that made the article very credible. Some of these studies were even posted in a psychology journal. One weakness is that the word choice throughout might be a little too advanced for some readers.
6). The information provided from this source would not increase the strength of my thesis, because I believe that email has strengthened the communication between the world and this article explains that in-person communication is much more effective than communication by email or text message.
7). The material in this article is very relevant, it is just not in terms of my paper. I am talking about the importance of digital communication and this article wants to keep it more personal and in-person.