Ship of Fools: email and social meeja

Thread: email and social meeja Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

I find myself using email less and less - will it go the way of the written letter eventually? Hardly ever used?

Also - twice recently - I have found myself emailing short lines, no intro, no sign off - as if I'm on FB or similar social meeja.

Are we getting so used to the instant message that we will completely forget how to write 'proper' letters soon?

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

#No

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

It's quite rare that I get an email now. And no letters at all. I do regret that - it's nice to have the chance for a personal chat with someone you don't see often/at all.

Facebook doesn't really cater for that: you can send private messages in a limited sort of message box but everything else is seen by your friends and feels very public, with the result that posts on FB tend to be quite impersonal. I actually know less about my friends' lives now through FB than I did through email.

It's odd to say that social media is actually isolating but it can feel that way a chunk of the time. I find I'm using FB less these days because it's actually quite inhibiting.

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

I find the internet makes it possible to use the written word in a way that is more and more like speech and conversation. You can add things you think of afterwards, as soon as you think of them, and you can respond to what the person has said immediately. It's less a monologue and more of an interaction. Which makes the formal way of writing letters less necessary. Emails are instant, so if you're sending them back and forth within a short time period, it becomes a bit redundant to include 'Dear ... ' and 'Best wishes, from ...' in every email, and so after a while you stop. And I found that to be the case before Facebook and other 'social meeja'.

At the same time, the whole 'monologue' aspect of letter writing isn't lost, because it's used instead in other ways - in blog posts, for instance, and to some extent on forums, and even in Facebook posts (if you're the kind of person who updates in detail). There are still plenty of people who take time to compose a thought-out piece of writing, describing their thoughts or their experiences.

It is generally not one-to-one in those formats though - but to me, one-to-one conversation is often more suited to the back and forth type thing where you don't always have to post each other's names in every message. And most social sites have some form of private messaging. I find Facebook messaging pretty similar to email, other than the whole infinite scroll thing, making it hard to find older messages from someone if you've exchanged a lot of messages.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

"Meeja" appears to mean "a derogatory form of the word media used in the UK" according to a web search.

The two are entirely different. Email is a handy form of communication if you do some simple diligence: have separate email accounts for business, personal and online shopping - so a minimum of three; auto filtre and delete emails with no subject stated or with non-informative subjects such as hello, having informed people that's what you're doing, and use proper spam filtres. It is also worthy to avoid services where the user is the product like gmail and all of the microsoft services.

Social media - become neechie and connect with people you actually really know and want to see pictures and info about. (You may look up neechie [Biased]

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I mix and interact with a lot of people who happen to be older than me. And a significant number are not on FB. Many of them are new to email, so we still observe the social niceties of 'Dear Chorister', 'All best wishes', etc. The medium may well change over time, but for the foreseeable future (I'm not aware that any of them are planning to pop their clogs just yet), emails are alive and well and people do take the trouble to start and end them politely.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

The main difference as I see it is that there's been a shift more to "broadcasting" where messages are seen by several people at any one time, and away from personal messages where you can chat about things in-depth on a one-to-one basis. It's actually quite hard to get a proper discussion going about anything anywhere, SOF excepted. Blogs are a bit of a hybrid - in theory people can comment but in practice people rarely do and comments are usually brief.

It is a bit of a giveaway that the private message box in Facebook is quite tiny, as if to discourage longer messages (it's certainly difficult to write in), Twitter has a set character limit, and phones are notoriously cramped. It's more about speed, brevity, impersonality and sharing these days.

Posted by Diomedes (# 13482) on :

I use email and fb private messaging for the reasons given by others - speed, brevity and no postage stamp needed - but I write letters and postcards to my grandchildren and they love getting something so special and personal through the letter box! I'm not sure I would have been equally thrilled as a child, but in those far off days everyone got letters so there was no novelty value!

Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :

I love a letter. I send letters and postcards by post and love getting replies by any medium, but especially handwritten by post in return. Unfortunately I'm losing recipients gradually. even my Grannie isn't able to see well enough to read letters for herself, but my cousins help her.

For a while my Dad would write back to me, but eventually he started to type and print letters off the computer which didn't seem as good somehow.

Cattyish, old fashioned girl.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

I send and receive e-mails in the same way as I used to write letters. I loved letters but prefer e-mails, as I can "search" and find relevant earlier e-mails easily.

When our son went to Uni, he wrote proper letters to his sister. It turned out that he had never been taught how to write a social letter and had learned by reading Jane Austen. His letters concluded with wonderful phrases such as "I remain, my dear sister, your most affectionate brother".

(Alas, his communications to me tended to be FB pms along the lines of "Mum! Urgent! How do I get fake blood out of white shower grouting?")

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
It's actually quite hard to get a proper discussion going about anything anywhere, SOF excepted. Blogs are a bit of a hybrid - in theory people can comment but in practice people rarely do and comments are usually brief.

It is a bit of a giveaway that the private message box in Facebook is quite tiny, as if to discourage longer messages . It's more about speed, brevity, impersonality and sharing these days.

I've come across (particularly with younger people) an active dislike of comments on their posts. (Likes are OK.) I have noticed, interestingly, that the wordiest comments on my own posts are often from SoF friends - we are carrying on habits formed here, obviously. I actually like longer comments and discussions on my FB posts, so please don't stop! Perhaps it's because longer term message board users have learnt to type fast - maybe the younger generation just want to look quickly at something, then move on to something else without stopping to think?

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

I find it depends on the people to a large extent. I like discussions and have quite a few friends who also like them, so I often have quite in-depth, interesting discussions on Facebook. But it does tend to be people I know from other websites where discussion was the norm - I guess you develop a habit of online discussion from forum sites, and then carry it on wherever you go. But I find that for people who have joined Facebook simply to keep in touch with friends, and who haven't previously used forum sites, online discussions don't come naturally to them. Which makes sense. Different people have very different ways of using Facebook.

It gets complicated by the fact that Facebook is also a place where people post personal stuff, as well as stuff to discuss, and the people who like to discuss will often post opinions on personal stuff, which can sometimes bit a bit invasive. Such as when you ask for prayers about something, and people comment with their advice and tell you what they think you should be doing, etc., and they don't know the whole situation, and make a lot of assumptions. I find that quite tiring and intrusive. So I can also understand how some people don't like comments - there are some posts I make where I'm relieved when people just press 'like' and don't leave a comment! It really depends on the kind of post.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

My FB posts are generally bantering - and make no reference to a current large elephant in the room. But, otoh, it's good to have time off from the said pachyderm, who nevertheless features largely in emails.

In terms of style, I'd say both posts and emails are closer to fragments of blog spliced with discussion than handwritten letters - because you know the recipient can respond immediately.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I send and receive e-mails in the same way as I used to write letters. I loved letters but prefer e-mails, as I can "search" and find relevant earlier e-mails easily.

When our son went to Uni, he wrote proper letters to his sister. It turned out that he had never been taught how to write a social letter and had learned by reading Jane Austen. His letters concluded with wonderful phrases such as "I remain, my dear sister, your most affectionate brother".

(Alas, his communications to me tended to be FB pms along the lines of "Mum! Urgent! How do I get fake blood out of white shower grouting?")

I do like the idea of learning to write letters out of Austen, though. Me, I rarely reach that pitch unless furiously annoyed by a minor bureaucrat, at which point the entire formula comes out, together with bits of French in the salutation.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I still write letters now and then - I think they have more 'clout' than emails if, for example, I want to complain about something.

However, I like the quick exchange and replies that tend to come with emails.

I am currently writing to two people in prison and I get fristrated with the length of time it taks to get a reply (exacerbated by their being rationed inside.)

Posted by Paul. (# 37) on :

I used to write a lot of personal letters when I was younger. When email came along and became popular I had become a bit deficient in the friends department [Frown]

so I tended not to write or receive many emails-as-letters. Most of my email use was either a) at work or b) for things like online orders, signing up to things (e.g. SoF!) and so on.

In the Social Media era I have I suppose gained (back) a few more correspondents but now they're split across different platforms. I have X who likes to use Facebook messenger, Y who only texts me, checks FB once every few days and email monthly, Z who likes WhatsApp...

I'd dearly love to get them all on the same platform. I'm not that picky as to which it is.

[ 11. November 2015, 17:09: Message edited by: Paul. ]

Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :

That is a modern era issue. Some people don't mind a text but hate answering the phone; other people won't ever read a text from anyone but their boyfriend but will happily chat away on Facebook. I now keep lists for business or voluntary sector contacts with columns headed "First Contact", "Second Contact" and so on rather than itemised by method. For a lot of people a phone call still works best if you really want an answer.

Cattyish, losing track of all the apps.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Are Millenials able to converse except with thumbs on phone screen? How are we to deal with these thumb checkers rendered unable to walk in front of us because their self has had its very soul and neurons sucked into the universal cyberbrain.

Egads, how to stop the google, the facebook and the other omniscient egods from selling our data to the CIA, financially impaired Nigerians, Russian pornographers and apparently marriageable poor women who want to have my babies?

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

Some of our choir members even seem to manage to sing while checking their i-phones. Choir practice is 1 1/2 hours long and anything could happen on social media during that length of time!!!

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Some of our choir members even seem to manage to sing while checking their i-phones. Choir practice is 1 1/2 hours long and anything could happen on social media during that length of time!!!

Haha!

My friend's son plays principal cornet in a band - when he has a long rest in a piece he checks his phone (how he counts it out at the same time I don't know!)

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Well - they are starting them young!

ipad holder for a pushchair.

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