Emails in 2019: 4 Reasons Why They’re Far from Being Your Enemies
Ever since we’ve all reached consensus that the hyphen between ‘e’ and ‘mail’ is honestly, quite unnecessary, email hasn’t really made any ground-breaking changes to the way we communicate.
Nowadays going through your emails is seen as a chore — yet I think we might have overlooked the reasons why email will not be replaced anytime soon. I’m not here to praise email as the hottest trend — but I think perhaps it’s time to look at email in another perspective.
1. Email remains the most important identifier
At first glance, there’s always a replacement or a better way to transfer everyday information: cloud sharing for large files, social media to stay informed, IM for quick chats and internal project collaborations.
Email is so not 2018, right? Just ask the millennials that’s always on their phones. They must have given up such ancient forms of communication long ago. Yet you would be surprised that 63% of them still prefer email as their no.1 choice of communication with retailers. In marketing but also in a much broader sense, emails still serve as the most personal and first contact to reach someone.
Email is always the first contact because it’s ubiquitous. When you first met someone you would like to follow up from a conference, there are hundreds and thousands of options: Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, LinkedIn…Snapchat even, maybe? Yet their email address remains the lowest denominator of them all, and it’s without a doubt that you just know they’re going to have an email address. When there’s an important file to be sent and viewed by the entire team, email is what you’ll default to.
The level of trust we place on email proves its establishing identity, making it indispensable in our workflow.
2. Email etiquette is flexible and still adapting
Compared to IM, the flexibility of email etiquette somehow allows you to use it for any occasion. In professional settings, sending an unsolicited Facebook message that’s longer than a paragraph simply doesn’t make sense. A nicely written email, however, shows your professionalism and gets the message across way more efficient than any IM tool.
More importantly, while there’s always space to elaborate on a topic, there’s also the option to simply send a one sentence reply. In fact it’s exactly because you don’t expect someone to get back to you right away via email, often times I’ll appreciate a quick and short response even more.
In most cases, emails are sent in real time (except when scheduled) without the expectation to receive an immediate reply. In 2018, it’s one of the only few medium that allows you to be connected, without the pressure of staying connected.
3. There’s no information overload in your message
When reflecting on the development of IM, there are certain kinds of information that I really don’t think add much value to the quality of a conversation. Sure, knowing when your contact was last online on Whatsapp might be extremely helpful in emergency or life-threatening situations; yet most times, it only inflicts frustration for users who overthink whether their message has been purposely left unopened.
It’s true that services like Mailbutler provide features to let you track when your email has been opened, or when your attached links have been read. Other email marketing tools also tell you how documents or files within emails are being read: you can find out how engaged your prospects are by measuring their reading time, which part of the document they’re most interested in…the list of techniques and strategies goes on. But at the end of the day, your inbox remains your own private space. Unlike IM services, your messages are not scanned or read by anyone but you. Soon email systems may even be decentralized.
In this digital age where everyone is always expected to be online, I sometimes still enjoy the slight peace of mind from my email app that I can check it whenever I want, without a green light appearing next to my avatar, broadcasting the announcement that ‘hey all, I’m now reachable!’.
The beauty of emails lies in its simplicity, or perhaps, lack of unnecessary insight. It’s straight-forward: you send an email and you wait for the reply. There’s more weight to an email than a quick text — the inability to reverse a message after it has arrived in someone’s inbox, and perhaps its formality as well — are what make us really think twice before hitting send.
4. There’s *still* a need for asynchronous communication
Nowadays we’re expected to be reachable at all times, in fact we’re always prompted to stay connected. Apps are developed with deliberate techniques to attract your attention and extend onscreen time. Social networking apps e.g. Snapchat, which targets a younger audience, are filled with features such as Snap streaks and Trophies that are engineered to purposely take over your brain’s reward system.
During WWDC, Apple introduced Screen Time to iOS, which monitors and controls how much time you spend on each app. At Google’s annual developer’s conference, Google I/O, CEO Sunar Pichai stressed the theme of responsibility in technology.
Simply put, it’s now more important than ever that we as technology users are mindful of the time we spend on our devices.
Since the emergence of newer communicative forms with richer and faster information transfer, we somehow expect every interaction on our phones and desktop to do even more.
We’re accustomed to the speed and synchronicity of messenger apps — and we complain that emails are simply not efficient. But is that really the case? Or are we the ones who are becoming impatient?
When email is done right
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I can still be overwhelmed by all the incoming emails. The average office worker receives approximately 121 emails a day. And that’s still a lot. However the annoyance of email also has a lot to do with us misusing it: not opting out of newsletters and offers, not turning off unnecessary notifications from app…and so on.
With regulations like GDPR rolling out to prevent us from further drowning in marketing and unsolicited messages, there’s no better time than now to stress the importance of actually taking care of our inbox. After spending time decluttering, going through the list of subscriptions that I don’t actually need, and simply being more careful when giving away my email address — I’ve learned to appreciate it a whole lot more.
“Why are we defending emails?” Because we’ve yet to find something that truly replaces it in a foreseeable future. At an era where information is oversaturated, where technology is advancing in a speed that surpasses the human brain — emails when done right will remain one of the most effective, and perhaps one of the least demanding forms of communication.
(Edited by Simone Wong)
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