Convergence
Lawrence Lessig has been hailed as a man of brilliance and vision. With his recent innovation of e-mail bankruptcy, I am convinced.
I have unreturned e-mail going back almost two years now, and I blame the iPhone. I used to come home, check my e-mail, and respond to the most pressing items right away. Now, I can read my e-mail wherever I am. I can deal with the contents mentally, but I’m not always in a position to respond right away. When I get home now, I look at all of my new e-mail and say “Oh, I read those already.”
I’ve noticed a similar convergence/replacement effect with Facebook. Once I joined, I all but stopped blogging. A daily status update to my 200 closest friends felt like enough of a public presence. Plus, it was less effort on my part, more likely to generate feedback, more likely to reach people I knew, and was more interactive. But my voice was curtailed. I was part of a community, but it wasn’t my own space.
I’m going to continue with Facebook, but I’m back on the blog as well. It just took me a few weeks to sort out this particular convergence. Compared to the e-mail/iPhone problem, I worked this one out relatively quickly.
And now I have about twenty unreturned e-mails on Facebook as well. Ah, convergence…
May 7th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I couldn’t agree more – “email bankruptcy” is a brilliant idea.
And I know exactly what you mean about reading something on iPhone and then mistakenly thinking that it is dealt with when you “re-see” it on the computer monitor. FYI, using the “mark as unread” function has been really helpful for me in this regard. This allows me to make an email look “new,” even if I have already read it.
I have noticed with the iPhone (at least with GMail) that the ability to “file” emails is incredibly helpful – and actually vastly BETTER than the onscreen “labeling” version: when you file on iPhone, the item disappears from your InBox, leaving only those items that still require your attention (whether marked as “read” or “unread”). Those items do subsequently appear labeled on your computer monitor, but it would be nicer not to see them at all.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I use the “mark as unread” feature, and now I just have a long list of “unread” e-mail piling up.
I haven’t used the “file” function. Maybe that would help. Thanks for the tip!
May 9th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
It’s too much information. Abundance has rendered everything important to be equally ignored as clutter.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Welcome, Amber!
It’s a good point. The more clutter you get, the more important items can slip through the cracks.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:56 am
OMG Yo. I TOTALLY had the same experience will blogging/Facebook. I’m just starting to remember now that I have a blog! But YOUR blog is one of the best, so I’m glad you’re back on track!!