Conundrum of a Hypocrite...
I am not much of fan when it comes to group emails. It’s not that often that I say to myself,
“Oh yea! This email is important enough for everyone to read. I just don’t seem to like it when someone has something for only me to know.”
This of course is not true; I am way too selfish to ever feel that way.
The problem begins with having too many people to talk to and “group email” being the habitually chosen recourse. The social default is finding the easiest way to say hello to as many people as you can and as effortlessly as possible. But all too often the reader is left unsatisfied with your attempt because it failed to invoke a personal appeal. Life was easier when you could just use the hallway between classes to get these multiple greetings across. But as time passes by, so does the opportunity to use your hallways. Therefore as people get older they begin to become more selective when it comes to extending these greetings and keeping in touch. This is based on the reality that the opportunity to greet is less frequent and communication therefore becomes more difficult. Unless an increase in one’s effort is applied. But realistically speaking, the implied result is less communication with the people we know as we get older. Consequently, “group emails” are then used as a remedy; however this only leads to confusion surrounding this ineffective and impersonal concept of compound correspondence. This “problem” is suppose to be avoided as technology evolves, but as you read you will see that it doesn’t work that way.
Today’s propensity is to say hello by sending an email, not a phone call. Or to even go further back, when was the last time you wrote a letter to someone? At one time, I will remind you, getting the mail did include more excitement than escorting your findings to the garbage and cursing your creditors. Nevertheless, email has its own flaws. The one I am concerned with is this idea of sending “group emails” to continue relationships. “Group emails” are inherently flawed when used for this purpose because they contradict their intended desire of sending a personal message, which is the principle of any genuine greeting. Let’s examine some of these other methods before we come back to “group emails.” We’ll do this in a chronological order of two, considering their place in evolution.
The postal service, as exhausting as it is, is at least less deceiving when it comes to determining who the message was meant for. For example, if a letter was meant for several readers, one could quickly identify that letter’s intentions by reading the heading on the envelope. It might say something like “To the Kensington Household” (use pompous tone). That type of courtesy would save you the disappointment of realizing that you are in fact not special. But not “group emails”, they set you up! It’s only after that moment of anticipation followed by the three seconds you invest, waiting for time to process, are you able to determine that you are of no consequence to its contents. I asked earlier, “When was the last time you wrote a letter?” Under what circumstances would someone determine that their salutatory assignment requires the combined attention of pen, paper, stamp and envelope? It just isn’t practical without that applied effort, also mentioned earlier. Especially considering the convenience of sending everyone you know a once written electronic hello. Writing letters doesn’t commonly solve this problem because, evidently, no one does it anymore.
Telephone calls at first were easy and personal however they presented a questionable risk to the receiver. Until caller ID was introduced, one had no idea if the call was even for them. This was very problematic. Not only were you never intended to be a part of the transaction, but now you have inherently volunteered to be tasked with taking a message or locating the desired listener. That scenario is on par with stubbing your toe. The only thing worse than that is “stubbing your toe” on piece of furniture that you never wanted to talk to in the first place. For example, answering the phone call on your “sick day” only to end up fielding questions from your boss is a different set of problems unrelated to the disappointment of receiving a generally written message to the public. Caller ID was able to solve that problem; however cell phones came to ruin that mechanism for defense, because by definition, you are expected to always be able to answer. So eventually people buy caller ID, purchase answering machines, and turn off their cell phones all in a tactical effort to filter communication. Saying hello by virtue of a telephone also doesn’t work anymore.
I realize the tone of this grammatical mess is beginning to discuss a problem of social behavior, to which I am unqualified to speak. So I will stop this impending digression and steer myself back to the problem of receiving a generally written email for several that evokes absolutely no curiosity or interest from anything other than a “spell check function.” Imagine ten disillusioned faces scanning a computer screen versus the meticulous interest under which “spell check” would evaluate your document.
So how can one person both effectively and effortlessly stay in touch with as many people as possible? Unfortunately, I don’t know. I have spent most of my time concluding that “group emails” are nothing more than a generically driven effort, kind of like winning one dollar on a lottery ticket. You remain unfulfilled and somewhat confused as to whether you should be excited or rather insulted, for winning your dollar. That is why I don’t like them and will avoid sending out community greetings. I will acknowledge that they do solve part of the problem, that being the numerical side. Nevertheless, I still haven’t sent out very many emails or greetings since my deployment. As one might do in a hallway. With that said I will take group emails as an oppurtunity to correct my lack of communication, without any remorse for sending impartial messages.
~Rolligun
...and so it is, a Conundrum of a Hypocrite.
“Oh yea! This email is important enough for everyone to read. I just don’t seem to like it when someone has something for only me to know.”
This of course is not true; I am way too selfish to ever feel that way.
The problem begins with having too many people to talk to and “group email” being the habitually chosen recourse. The social default is finding the easiest way to say hello to as many people as you can and as effortlessly as possible. But all too often the reader is left unsatisfied with your attempt because it failed to invoke a personal appeal. Life was easier when you could just use the hallway between classes to get these multiple greetings across. But as time passes by, so does the opportunity to use your hallways. Therefore as people get older they begin to become more selective when it comes to extending these greetings and keeping in touch. This is based on the reality that the opportunity to greet is less frequent and communication therefore becomes more difficult. Unless an increase in one’s effort is applied. But realistically speaking, the implied result is less communication with the people we know as we get older. Consequently, “group emails” are then used as a remedy; however this only leads to confusion surrounding this ineffective and impersonal concept of compound correspondence. This “problem” is suppose to be avoided as technology evolves, but as you read you will see that it doesn’t work that way.
Today’s propensity is to say hello by sending an email, not a phone call. Or to even go further back, when was the last time you wrote a letter to someone? At one time, I will remind you, getting the mail did include more excitement than escorting your findings to the garbage and cursing your creditors. Nevertheless, email has its own flaws. The one I am concerned with is this idea of sending “group emails” to continue relationships. “Group emails” are inherently flawed when used for this purpose because they contradict their intended desire of sending a personal message, which is the principle of any genuine greeting. Let’s examine some of these other methods before we come back to “group emails.” We’ll do this in a chronological order of two, considering their place in evolution.
The postal service, as exhausting as it is, is at least less deceiving when it comes to determining who the message was meant for. For example, if a letter was meant for several readers, one could quickly identify that letter’s intentions by reading the heading on the envelope. It might say something like “To the Kensington Household” (use pompous tone). That type of courtesy would save you the disappointment of realizing that you are in fact not special. But not “group emails”, they set you up! It’s only after that moment of anticipation followed by the three seconds you invest, waiting for time to process, are you able to determine that you are of no consequence to its contents. I asked earlier, “When was the last time you wrote a letter?” Under what circumstances would someone determine that their salutatory assignment requires the combined attention of pen, paper, stamp and envelope? It just isn’t practical without that applied effort, also mentioned earlier. Especially considering the convenience of sending everyone you know a once written electronic hello. Writing letters doesn’t commonly solve this problem because, evidently, no one does it anymore.
Telephone calls at first were easy and personal however they presented a questionable risk to the receiver. Until caller ID was introduced, one had no idea if the call was even for them. This was very problematic. Not only were you never intended to be a part of the transaction, but now you have inherently volunteered to be tasked with taking a message or locating the desired listener. That scenario is on par with stubbing your toe. The only thing worse than that is “stubbing your toe” on piece of furniture that you never wanted to talk to in the first place. For example, answering the phone call on your “sick day” only to end up fielding questions from your boss is a different set of problems unrelated to the disappointment of receiving a generally written message to the public. Caller ID was able to solve that problem; however cell phones came to ruin that mechanism for defense, because by definition, you are expected to always be able to answer. So eventually people buy caller ID, purchase answering machines, and turn off their cell phones all in a tactical effort to filter communication. Saying hello by virtue of a telephone also doesn’t work anymore.
I realize the tone of this grammatical mess is beginning to discuss a problem of social behavior, to which I am unqualified to speak. So I will stop this impending digression and steer myself back to the problem of receiving a generally written email for several that evokes absolutely no curiosity or interest from anything other than a “spell check function.” Imagine ten disillusioned faces scanning a computer screen versus the meticulous interest under which “spell check” would evaluate your document.
So how can one person both effectively and effortlessly stay in touch with as many people as possible? Unfortunately, I don’t know. I have spent most of my time concluding that “group emails” are nothing more than a generically driven effort, kind of like winning one dollar on a lottery ticket. You remain unfulfilled and somewhat confused as to whether you should be excited or rather insulted, for winning your dollar. That is why I don’t like them and will avoid sending out community greetings. I will acknowledge that they do solve part of the problem, that being the numerical side. Nevertheless, I still haven’t sent out very many emails or greetings since my deployment. As one might do in a hallway. With that said I will take group emails as an oppurtunity to correct my lack of communication, without any remorse for sending impartial messages.
~Rolligun
...and so it is, a Conundrum of a Hypocrite.
posted by Rolligun at 12:06 AM
2 Comments:
Wow, so much to think about! What a talented writer you are. Interesting post. Further to the phone thing, now the dreaded text message is taking over, so that we are further keeping in touch, but losing touch at the same time....if you know what i mean.
Good point Steph, the only good thing about that blasted "text messaging" is it's ability differentiate between us and monkeys.
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