Really. If you don’t agree, you may be using it wrong.
There are so many ways to communicate these days it just boggles the mind.
What was once limited to postal mail and (landline) telephone calls has blossomed to include instant messages and chat, store-and-forward audio and video messages, text messages, video call services, Zoom and its competitors, and more.
I use all of those from time to time as situations warrant. But I keep coming back to a tried and true communication mechanism that works the best for me for so many different reasons.
I keep coming back to email.
Become a Patron of Ask Leo! and go ad-free!
Email is great
Email isn’t dead. It remains a flexible, effective communication tool. It gives you time to think, preserves context, doesn’t interrupt, and can be managed efficiently with things like inbox rules and decluttering. Newer generations might favor alternatives, but email remains indispensable for professional communication and tasks requiring clarity, record-keeping, and reliability.
1. Email lets me think
This by far the most important reason I gravitate to email as my communication mechanism of choice.
I feel like I’m horrible off the cuff. I feel awkward and put on the spot, and I’m usually left with that “I should have said” feeling for some time thereafter.
I just don’t think that fast.
Composing an email lets me take whatever time I need, be it a few seconds, a few minutes, or (rarely) a few hours.
2. Email lets me say exactly what I want
Just as importantly, email allows me to carefully craft what I say and make sure that I’m saying what I intend to say.
That’s not to say I’m still not occasionally misunderstood — no communication mechanism is perfect — but if I can invest the time to think about what I’m saying and how I say it, chances are I’ll do a much better job of getting my point across.
Yes, I suppose it helps that I’m a writer. But let’s clarify: it wasn’t always so. I’m first and foremost a computer geek (and have been since Fortran was a required course back in my college days).
I was certainly no writer then; not a writer of words, anyway; I was and remain a writer of code. And yet email was it for me from the moment I was introduced to it.1
3. Email lets me consume on my schedule
Email need never be an interruption. If it is, you’re doing it wrong. I’ll talk about that in a minute.
I can turn off email for hours, and I often do. And that’s OK!
I can choose when I’m going to consume email or not. I might elect not to open my email program until noon some days, or clear out my inbox first thing and then ignore it while I get other things done.
I control it, not the other way around.
4. Email lets me reply without interrupting
Similarly, I can reply to anyone at any time and know that it doesn’t create an interruption for them. I never feel guilty about sending an email.
That means I’m more likely to respond rather than avoid the awkwardness or annoyance of some other form of contact.
5. I can scan email quickly
No one said I have to read the whole message.
Particularly on active discussion lists, it’s often enough to check out a subject line or quickly scan a bit of the message and realize that it’s not something I need to read or participate in.
Deleting is also my friend. I can, and often do, quickly scan the accumulated email in the morning and delete or archive anything and everything I don’t care to act on.
And I can do all that quickly and easily.
6. I can read it anywhere
Naturally, I deal with email on my computer, but I can also deal with it on my mobile phone or tablet.
Sometimes those devices aren’t the best for composing lengthy replies, but as I said earlier, I can choose when I want to do what. What they are great for, however, is scanning, reading, deleting, and archiving email that comes in.
No matter where I am.
Waiting in various locations like restaurants, traffic jams, before and after meetings (and yes, sometimes during)… while having a coffee at Starbucks… it doesn’t matter where I am; email is ubiquitous.
7. I can preserve context
One of the problems with delayed responses is that the sender often loses context. If I reply “Yes”, for example, they may have forgotten the question they asked just the day before.
That’s easily dealt with. My replies often look like this:
> On Tuesday 10/27 Joe Bloe said:
> Are we still meeting on Friday?
Yes!
I didn’t quote the entire email; just enough to give context. It’s a wonderful way to make sure everything is clear and everyone is on the same page.
8. I can keep a record
I keep almost all of my mail, both what I send and what I receive. Storage is cheap, after all.
There’s no predicting what I’ll need a year or two from now — and yes, I have occasionally gone back several years to find something. Knowing I have all this email archived (and backed up) makes finding old and random items easy.
Now, to present the other side for a moment: this is why lawyers prefer phone calls and in-person meetings. Email records can be subpoenaed by courts in many jurisdictions. That message you sent last year could be an important part of a court case. As long as it’s something that helps your cause, that’s fine, but if not… well, you may want to reconsider how much email you keep and for how long. (And as ever, I’m not an attorney. If you have an actual question relating to the legal issues surrounding email retention, I strongly suggest you contact yours.)
9. You get what you ask for
In recent years, it’s become popular to connect with people via social media. It’s also a popular publication medium for content creators. Post something on social media and people see it, simple as that.
Except it’s not that simple at all. Algorithms now show you what will keep you engaged rather than the information you want from the people you follow.
There’s no such algorithm for email. When someone signs up for my newsletter, for example, they get what they asked for: my newsletter. Every week. Yes, spam filters can sometimes interfere, but there are solutions for that, unlike social media algorithms.
I’ve switched many of my social media “follows” and “subscribes” to email subscriptions when offered by the creator. It’s significantly more reliable.
If you hate email, you’re probably doing it wrong
One of the common reactions I get to this article is “I HATE EMAIL” — usually from people with an overflowing inbox.2
My friends, if that’s your reaction, you’re doing email wrong. There’s no reason email can’t be managed into a useful tool instead of an oppressive burden.
- Unsubscribe. Stop receiving all those newsletters and promotional emails that you’re not paying attention to anyway. (Yes, even my own; if you’re not finding it helpful, then why should I be bugging you?)
- Use that spam filter. Make sure that all that stuff you shouldn’t unsubscribe from — the stuff you didn’t originally ask for — gets swept out of your inbox automatically so you never have to look at it.
- Don’t save email in your inbox. Set up folders and sort messages into them once you decide what they need. You’re probably not going to act on ’em while they’re in your inbox anyway, so why have them in your face?
- Act on each message once. This is an ideal I admit I don’t always reach, but the goal is simple: touch each incoming message only once if at all possible. On your first read, archive it, delete it, reply to it, or whatever makes sense for the type of message it is.
- Rules are your friend. Use rules and filters to sort your incoming email for you automatically. My servers send me a bunch of email every night. I never look at it since I have inbox rules set up to automatically move them to a folder. If I encounter an issue, I can always find them in that folder. Use the computer for what it’s good at: automated tasks.
- Use multiple accounts. Often we get too much email as a result of signing up for things, making purchases that require an email address, and so on. Use a throwaway account so you can pay attention only until you’ve completed the transaction. If a subscription or an account becomes important, you can always change the email address to your primary email account.
- Turn off new message alerts. Email should never interrupt you. Check email when you feel like it, and even then, don’t check it very often. There’s no reason to. Polling for email — or even worse, having a new message alert pop up while you’re doing something else — not only interrupts what you’re doing, but it adds to the sense of being overwhelmed.
Don’t think of email as something you do. Email isn’t a job, a role, or an end in and of itself.
Email is simply a tool to get other things done. Evaluate it like any other tool you use, and learn to use it appropriately.
But… the kids aren’t doing it!
It’s a common comment that individuals under a certain age (which ranges from 10 to 40 depending on who you’re talking to) don’t use email.
No, the kids aren’t jumping on it as quickly as they once did, but I suspect they will as situations arise for which it remains the best solution. For instance, when they enter the professional workforce they will, almost from day one. Any that want to communicate reliably with those on the other side of that imaginary dividing line of age will as well.
And to be completely realistic, email’s not for everyone. For folks with lifestyle issues or any issue that makes reading and/or writing itself a burden, email is not always the best choice.
Email has its issues and its problems; there’s no escaping that.
But it’s not dead. Not by a long shot.
Do this
Embrace email and learn to use it effectively. It’s a tool that will pay off in the long run.
For example, use it to subscribe to Confident Computing! Less frustration and more confidence, solutions, answers, and tips in your inbox every week.
Podcast audio
Related Video
Footnotes & References
1: May of 1983. I was introduced to email on my first day at Microsoft. I’d gotten through school and my first job without an address of my own. My first was @microsoft.com.
2: I have two email accounts that each get hundreds of emails a day. My inboxes are empty. Honest. I just checked.
I agree that other forms of communication can be an interruption. If I’m busy working on a project at work with a deadline, sometimes, I just want/need to get it done. If someone phones, I have to take time away form the project to answer their question, which might be 2 minutes or might be 30 minutes, depending on their problem. With email, I can glance and see whether their question truly is more important than me getting my project done. If it’s MUST ANSWER NOW, I’ll take the time to do so. If it looks like it can wait, I can ignore the email until I complete my project and then go back and respond with a polite, “I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner.”
The most useful rule/filter I implemented in my personal email is the one that says, “If sender is not in address book then mark as spam.” My inbox only gets a few emails a day. The rest are in spam. Periodically, I’ll scan the spam folder to see if something was marked in error, but usually it isn’t. For new correspondents, I use the Thunderbird option of adding new recipients to the Collected Addresses address book. That way when they respond, their email will go to my Inbox, even though they are not technically part of my personal address book.
I’m a huge email fan too, and as a freelancer, I use it as my primary means of corresponding with clients. One of my absolute favorite features of email is the ability to delay sending or send at a future time. I can type a response at any hour, but set the mail program (Outlook, in my case) to hold it in the outbox to send at a specific time (during business hours). This way, my clients don’t see that I respond to mail after hours and assume I’m available/expect me to do so around the clock. It helps to set/maintain some boundaries, which is very important when the office is just steps away. The delay send requires keeping the mail program running at all times, or at least during the window when the mail is to be sent, but I keep it running 24/7 anyway.
I wholeheartedly accept all your 8 points.
You can add another reason. I appreciate Email for its help to save, edit, delay, and reconsider my ‘Rant’. Though delaying the angry response is rather difficult for me (thankfully it is getting easier), my experience shows that it saves me from mistaken beliefs, misunderstanding, misreading, and as Leo said, ‘I could have said it differently’. More than once I’ve deleted my ‘saved’ mails after my discreet enquiry revealed the ‘actual situation’. Looking back, I did not save it, but actually it saved me!
I prefer email to texting – I more or less hate texting, although I’ll use it. I prefer a real keyboard (for my clumsy fingers – I can type faster on a real keyboard than I can on a smartphone or on any virtual keyboard). I also prefer a large screen (for my aging eyes with floaters).
On the email management issue, my email service (which I pay for, $2/month) allows me to set up aliases. I use various email aliases for various tasks or online services. The aliases all point into my actual email address but with the aliases I can filter/direct incoming messages for a particular alias, into an email folder created for that alias.
One technical situation where a text message might literally save your life:
Back in early 2005 or 2006, a light airplane crashed on one of the Gulf islands between the BC mainland and Vancouver Island. The plane crashed and burned and killed two or three people onboard, leaving one survivor. The onboard ELT locator beacon was destroyed in the crash, so it didn’t send out an automatic alert. The surviving passenger was able to send a text message from his cell phone to a friend, informing him about the crash and asking him to send help, after not being able to call out or reach anyone by voice phone call. Presumably cell phone coverage on the island was non-existent. I suspect the text message was able to travel further to reach a cell tower on the mainland, Vancouver Island or one of the other Gulf islands, that the voice message couldn’t reach because of the lower RF power demand and bandwidth of the the text message compared to a voice call.
You can type faster on a keyboard and so can I, but I’ve seen people under 25 who can type faster on their phone than I can type on a keyboard
.
Texting works in these cases mostly because it keeps trying. As radio signals change over time (as they do), as soon as it gets enough of a signal to squirt out the message, it does so. Even a second of weak connectivity is enough, unlike voice.
My first two experiences with Internet communication were with email, and web forums. Interestingly, both seem to be actively used today, even after more than a quarter century of technological advancements. I like email because I can read a messages content and perhaps reply when/if I want to. The same goes for Internet forums. Neither interrupts me while I’m busy with some project, or embarking on yet another adventure (trying to make the OS do something it couldn’t do out-of-the-box). In fact, I use Facebook in much the same way I do email and web forums. When I receive an email message informing me that someone on one of my lists (friends) posted, when I’m not busy with anything else, I go to Facebook, and read my friends/contacts posts, making replies/responses as appropriate. By using my Internet communications apps/sites the same way I do email, I’m in charge, not the other way around. I’m in command of when, and how long I use them. They don’t control what I do, or when. If I get involved with something that takes hours or days, my email messages and other Internet services are there waiting for me when I have time for them again. I like it that way.
Ernie
I went to Facebook settings and turned off all notifications. I hated getting an email everytime someon posted on my feed or tagged me. If I want to see who communicated with, I go to facebook and look at the Notifications there. Email is to important and shouldn’t be filled with FB notifications.
Wow! I see that I’ve been reading Leo’s newsletters and articles for 10 years (or more)! I see I was the first to comment on this article when it was originally released in 2014. And you know what, I still feel the same way, even though technology has changed a lot in those 10 years. I agree with Leo that email remains a significant and important part of my personal and professional life. Yes, I use a lot of newer stuff, especially at work since they’ve gone totally onboard with Microsoft 365 and Teams. I find those instant messages in Teams to be more distracting than email. Outlook gives me a short snippet of the email which I can choose to deal with or ignore. Teams just beeps at me, which gets me curious, so I go and see what was posted in the channel, which usually results in a side-trip somewhere. Or if the chat message is to me directly, it’s usually “Are you busy?” How do I answer that? I’m always busy, but depending on what you want to chat about, I’m happy to give you a few minutes, or maybe I’m too busy to spend my time chatting with you. I really don’t know.
You can turn off notifications in themes and you won’t be disturbed. I’ve turned of notifications on most of my apps that have notifications. For me the advantage of using email for everything is I have everything in one plce and I don’t have to deal with half a dozen messaging apps, which I do, but without notifications, like email, I can check them when I’m ready to respond.
Yes, Mark, I know I can turn off notifications in Teams. The problem is that sometimes those notifications are important and sometimes they can wait. Unlike Outlook, there’s no way for me to get a quick preview of whether it’s important or not without actually going down the rabbit hole, unless it’s a direct message, where there will be a preview, but most people’s first comment is usually not helpful, like, “Hi” or “Are you busy?”