Is Email Social Media?

A recent piece on Inside Higher Ed's "Survival Guide" explored the many drawbacks, frustrations, and dangers associated with the use and misuse of email, particularly in an academic environment. I can understand the various points of view. Email is both a blessing and a curse, or, as the writer of the article, C.K. Gunslaus, avers, a tool that like any other tool can be used constructively or destructively. But for the most part I'm a great fan and promoter of email, primarily, I suspect, because it isn't like many of the other social media. In reality, email is the latest version of the ancient and venerated genre of the letter, the epistle, the modern equivalent of written correspondence.

And for that reason, I prefer email to other forms of electronic communication. I enjoy the distance that it preserves and resist the expectation that email should be answered instantaneously. Sometimes that may be the case, and I appreciate the quick reply, but even more satisfying is the long and thoughtful exchange that preserves some of the character of personal correspondence. I've exchanged what amount to rather lengthy electronic letters with some of my oldest friends and members of my family who never or rarely wrote to me before the advent of email. And since I share with some of these same people an aversion to the telephone, not to mention texting or instant messaging, email has allowed for renewed contact and with a depth and a level of familiarity and intimacy in our correspondence that most likely would not occur otherwise.

I realize I'm fortunate to have several friends who write me long informative email messages that are well composed and reflect a level of engagement, not to mention verbal wit and style, that makes me want to save the correspondence and return to it attentively as I consider my own response. These are not necessarily messages that arrive on a daily basis, or that communicate timely or essential bits of information, although we do sometimes have those sorts of email exchanges as well, when preparing for an outing or making arrangements in advance of a visit. No, these are, as I say, electronic letters from friends who invest effort in composing witty and informative messages bringing me up to date on their lives or their thoughts on the various enormities of the day.

Interestingly, the other characteristic our correspondence shares with earlier forms is a certain level of formality often missing from electronic communication. We always begin our messages with a salutation of some kind and sign off with some sort of closing, either a witty flourish or some more genuine expression of good will and affection. We also check our spelling and grammar. Although the medium is email, our messages tend to reflect a level of concern with writing and written communication that no doubt would strike many as unnecessary, or more likely just old fashioned. But that's what I find attractive about email. It can preserve some of those qualities of epistolary correspondence that would otherwise be lost in the terse and often banal exchanges of more ephemeral electronic social media.