I do not carry a smart phone, and my flip phone is not conducive to texting. I do know how to text and occasionally do it, but I don't like it. If it is still around when Noah is older, I will surely change my feelings about it at that point.
I understand from talking with mothers of older kids that the culture of e-mail has changed. The younger generation finds it cumbersome and outdated and prefer messages to be instant and abbreviated, texted or Tweeted. I remember a friend telling me a great story about how the best way to reach her son was to call his cell phone but not leave a message. He would almost immediately call back, whereas voice mails and e-mails would elicit no response at all, and even texts were touch and go. The rules of the game are constantly in flux.
I continue to use the Hotmail e-mail address that I have had since at least the early 1990s. I have a gmail account that I use for some things as well, but Hotmail is still my main gig after all these years. My consulting work and personal contacts happen through that address. I read articles at the gym sometimes about how using Yahoo or Hotmail accounts scream out that I am a technological idiot and unable to function in today's communication landscape. Not true, but I don't care. In some ways, image is not at all what I am about. And since I've not yet in six years had to advertise that I am looking for more consulting work, it obviously isn't making people run screaming to the hills.
And yet, e-mail has meant a lot to me over the past couple of decades. While I don't hear people bragging, exactly, about how many e-mails they receive on a regular basis, I certainly have gained satisfaction from how successfully I have used e-mail to cultivate and maintain work relationships, to stay in touch with friends, and to engage in political activism and consumerism. Somehow, the number of e-mails I receive and am able to deal with became a Measure of My Worth. Has anyone else felt this, even while slaving away for a fourth hour at messages that took someone one minute to write and generated hours if not days of work or thought? Having a full inbox is a great way to feel important. Never mind that at least some percentage of e-mails include notices from the Gap telling you about their newest 30% off online sale. Somehow this too becomes, "How special I am, to be included in the select millions who get to shop this exclusive sale online."
And yet, e-mail is also is a burden. Those attachments. The endless threads when people choose "reply all" and make you see every single RSVP. The things that never would be said to you if you were face-to-face with the person instead. The viagra ads. My husband comes home at 9:00 p.m. with a wild look in his eyes, after having been at his job since 6:30 in the morning, driving back and forth between the two elementary schools at which he is the Principal, responding to crises with students, parents and staff all day long, skipping dinner and working straight through to the evening School Board Meeting two towns away, but none of this was enough, because he didn't get to check his e-mail and surely has 85 messages from the day that require immediate response. It's a burden.
I don't know what, exactly, changed my relationship with e-mail, but four weeks ago, we broke up. I had not been frustrated with it, had not felt it had treated me unfairly, but one day, I woke up and had had enough. I knew it owned me, and I got mad at it. I responded thoroughly to every personal message. I "unsubscribed" relentlessly. I deleted. I got my inbox down to zero by the end of the day. That night I slept the sleep of a happy child. Peace and freedom.
And I have gone to bed every night since then with my inbox empty. Not empty as in, e-mails stuck in dozens of folders to respond to later, but Empty. Emp-Ty. As in, no one loves me as much as I love myself, Empty. And the funny thing is, in the years before now I sometimes would have gone weeks without e-mailing my best friend, or sending that great photograph to my Dad, but I've had four wonderful weeks of e-mailing regularly with the people who matter the most. And despite the fact that I still receive advertisements, online petitions, and newsletters, I am not overwhelmed by them. Rather, I actually feel connected again, to myself and others. Now, wasn't the point of e-mail in the first place to have the possibility of instant connection?
In my life, at least, e-mail has been lovingly shown the door, appropriately resized and qualified. Now that I've got a bigger stake in my life and time than it does, hmm, I think we might actually be friends again.
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