Emails, emails, emails. Emails are a subject matter vile enough to make several people cringe in disgust. Let’s face it, emails have a bad reputation. Whether you’re overloaded with them, you’ve been rejected through emails, or maybe you simply don’t see their purpose; emails leave people with a bad taste in their mouth.
But what have emails done to deserve this? They were designed to be effective. They’re a more upscale version of everyone's best friend - a text message. Why do emails receive so much hate, when they really aren’t that bad? I was hoping that talking to my friends about emails would help me answer my question, but after chatting with some of my friends, they seem to have a more confusing stance than I thought: “I respond right away.” “Generally, I am excited at the idea of receiving an email.” “Easy communication.” So maybe emails don’t have the general “bad taste” I originally pinned them for, but hasn’t that been built up in our head? It seems that when it comes to emailing, everything we’ve seen from movies and TV shows put emails as being an annoyance and unpleasurable to handle. After talking to more friends, my original theory is reassured. “Emails are something I don’t care about.” “I view them as something old people want to come back.” “When I think of emails, I think of work.”
In my own experience, getting people to email back quickly is damn hard. If someone emails me back in the same day that I emailed them, they earn a gold star in my book. If I don’t email someone back the same day they emailed me, I’m probably going through a tragic life experience. As a growing and working college student, I view emails as a requirement. It is my job to check and respond to emails as fast as I possibly can. Emails are meant to make communication much easier and efficient, but I get the sinking feeling that people don’t believe in that anymore. When it takes someone days to respond to an email, I view them as someone who lacks good communication skills. There are exceptions, obviously, but emails are a vital part of communicating in today’s world, regardless if you love them or not.
At the end of the day, emails are sadly misunderstood as a communication method. They’ve been kicked around; sometimes they’re taken seriously while other times they’re deleted and ignored without even being opened. Emails are both best friends and worst enemies. What’s really sad is that emails have done nothing wrong to earn the confusing title that they possess today. So I ask of you, as a reader, to please treat emails with more respect. Learn to love and respect emails the way you love and respect text messages.
