Oct 15, 2009 11:10 am US/Eastern
Has Social Media Made E-Mail Obsolete?
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Ah yes, e-mail – the cutting edge of personal communication, right? Wrong.
As the
Wall Street Journal reported this week, good-old e-mail is rapidly being rendered obsolete by continuous, wide-net communication formats, like Facebook and Twitter. You can now reach more people, more often and more quickly than e-mail ever imagined. That's the upside.
But as the Journal notes, there's an emerging downside to this communication revolution.
For instance, I've gotten dozens of people following me on Twitter and Facebook, but I've got to be careful not to post stuff that might be offensive to some, like the funny piece I found on a humor Web site on Jon and Kate's messy divorce, or personal information about myself that might go where I don't want it to.
In this way, the new media may be inhibiting communication, not encouraging it.
There's so much communicating going on that filtering is becoming a necessity, but filtering has a downside too.
In politics, we've seen voters start to filter out perspectives they don't like. Conservatives watch FOX, liberals watch MSNBC and everyone's happy in their ideological cocoon – not so good for civil discourse.
As for convenience, you tell me: Is the ease of communication saving you time or swallowing more of it?
At least I have the option of walking over and talking face-to-face with my colleagues, something the Internet age doesn't always allow for.
Are you swimming in the 24/7, instant-gratification river of social-network communication these days? What are the pros and cons?
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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