Phone vs. Email
A guest post by Taylor Buzzard:
I have a trivia question for you.
What surprisingly requires all of the following, simultaneously:
Left hand.
Right hand.
Left eye.
Right eye.
Brain.
Physical body orientation.
?
EMAIL. Email requires all of the above, all at the same time. And that is why email has become a thorn in my flesh. Email asks too much of me.
I used to love email. I thought it was fun, a convenient way to plan and touch base with people, a vehicle for being witty and silly with friends, and a way to be creative with writing. But, as of 3 months ago, I now have two young children. And, as of 3 months ago, email demands more than I can give. The inbox piles up higher and higher, and my stress mounts higher and higher. Even as I write about this topic, my heartbeat is accelerating. I just can’t get my email under control.
The phone is much better suited to my lifestyle these days. It allows me to communicate with someone, while still looking at my children, physically interacting with them, and turning my body towards them. Email is like a dark cave that requires me to dive in, whereas the telephone allows me to stay at sea level and multitask. Have you ever noticed that one email topic requires at least 3-4 emails in order to close the issue at hand?
Here’s an example:
Email #1: Do you want to meet up for coffee sometime this week?
Email #2: Sure. I’m free on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
Email #3: Oh, bummer, I’m busy those nights. How about Friday morning?
Email #4: Sounds great. Want to meet at Peet’s at 9 am?
Email #5: You’re on. See you there.
Email #6: Alright. See you Friday morning.
I don’t think I exaggerated while writing this out. Six emails for a coffee date. A one-minute phone call could have taken care of all of that.
So, what to do, what to do? I can’t close my email account and call it quits. Email is a component of our modern life, and it would be unwise to pull the plug. I’m looking for ways to live with it without letting it weigh me down. One suggestion I’ve received is to create 3-4 folders where I immediately file every incoming email (To Read, To Answer, Pending, etc.). That way the inbox is always orderly. I’m going to start with this tactic. And if this doesn’t relieve my email stress, I think I will take more serious action and move to the second suggestion I received: to create an auto-reply message that states that I check email on days x, y, and z, and if a response is needed sooner, to please call me.
Email, email, I used to love you so.
Email, email, now I long to let you go.
Email, email, let’s try to make this work.
Email, email, before I go berserk.
The good thing about e-mail is it protects you from long winded people (like me). Like the cell phone, it is helpful when you are “dialing” out, but annoying when you get them in.
Maybe you could send out e-mails, and in your e-mail ask them to call you back during a certain time window because you don’t check it very often.
Or when you get e-mails in, write down all their names and then call them back from your comfy sofa.
Great post, Taylor! It’s very interesting to hear people’s opinions on these technologies. I prefer email because I don’t log on until the kids are asleep. The phone actually stresses me out, much the way you described feeling with email. I keep reminding myself that these technologies were designed to serve us, make our lives easier…and hopefully better. We must keep tweaking our use of them to suit our needs, and not let them or others tweak us. Also, nothing replaces face-to-face communication: where tone and content are (hopefully) never mis-construed. ;)
Hi Taylor – Interesting perspective. I prefer email, texting, or IM. The phone annoys me and I found it more difficult once I had 2 kids! Email I can respond to on my terms, after the kids are in bed, on my mobile when I’m at work or whenever.
Since I work in technology I’m always fascinated by people’s perspectives. As the previous poster said, technology works for us, not the other way around. And you can always respond to an email via the phone!
As a Mom email works better for me with children. My son would cry or want something the minute I got on the phone. Phone to him meant not getting undivided attention. (I know, working on this – no excuse, but did make phone difficult for person on other end of the line)
Email allows you to walk away, delay – wait till naps, happily playing, Dad coming home, sleep etc.
The SECRET: Don’t return ANY email for at least 5 hours even if you are sitting at the computer. That way people don’t expect immediate response – EVER. If they need something quickly and desperately they call.
Taylor,
I agree completely. I have two young boys (2 year old and a 1 year old) as well and I don’t have time at the end of the day between work and helping my wife with dinner and bathing the boys and putting them to bed to go through emails. My wife has sworn off email because she can’t even get to the computer during the day.
I have had too many coffee or prayer group meetings be handled via email, my small group at one point wanted to do accountability via an email questionnaire.
I think that email is replacing personal conversation, which is sad. Maybe my life is not as social as others are and I do not have as many friends to weed through via email, but I enjoy the friendships that I have that require conversation not correspondence. My mother always told me to have friends you must be friendly, and it seems to me that when I use email I stop being friendly and become more business like. I think email is a necessity for life but I don’t think it needs to be the necessity for life.
Mark
i encourage you to give the email system a run. i read about the idea on http://www.whatsbestnext.com/ and started applying it little by little (i refused, at first, to give up several of my gmail labels…but after using the 3 recommended labels i quickly abandoned all other techniques.)
it took a huge chunk of stress out of my life, i pray it’ll do the same for you.
-joe
I’m not a parent, but my usage of email reflects that of Melinda and Chris, above. Email isn’t really meant to be an instant communication medium–don’t force or expect it to be, and the advantages will start showing. You can check email on your own terms, and devote time to a response when you have time rather than immediately. If there’s a conversation that requires some thought, you can delay sending your reply while thinking it over, and have time to revise your response before sending it. You automatically get a record of the entire conversation in case you want to go back and look at it later. None of these is true with a phone conversation.
It’s not best for everything–as you point out, there are some functions that are better suited to instant communication (whether that means phone, text, or IM). But there are certainly advantages to email too.
I will stop emailing you all the time, Tay! Jk… kinda. :-D
It’s tough sometimes, because it is hard to be on the phone at work (where I spend my days), whereas an email is totally feasible.
Love the poem!!
I thought you’d like the email, Claire dawg. =)
Thank you, everyone, for your thoughtful comments and ideas. I completely agree that email is an amazing technology that made my life easier…until my second child arrived. As long as I am a stay-at-home mom with a babe in either arm, email is going to be tough (for the mere fact that it requires two hands). As Mark S. wrote, all church/ministry communication is handled via email, and I can get overwhelmed by the volume.
typo alert:
Claire, I meant to write, “I thought you’d like the poem.”
If we’d been talking on the phone, it would have been easier to correct this mistake. ;-)
The irony in all of this is that I grew up with a bad stutter and was petrified of the phone. Thank you Jesus for your healing, and the fact that I now like the phone! Except for when I have to say who it is calling, I’ve always had a hard time saying my first name with fluency. Embarrassing, yes.
