Email (object Lessons)

"Randy Malamud examines the traditions of letters and technical communication, including telegraphs, telephones, faxes, and social media, with a focus on email. He considers why so many users tend to dislike it so strongly, and why it may be imperfect or dysfunctional as a means of communicating, but also he tries to find unappreciated benefits and joys, and describes, at the end, how people may learn to write better email. This cultural history and analysis of email is historical and technological, but is most firmly grounded in the freeplay of a humanistic exploration of email as text, as object, and as aesthetic artifact. The book sometimes ventures far afield from the ubiqitous phenomenon of email to appraise it from a removed and critical vantage point, yet at other times Email becomes almost like an email itself. The sections of the book, inspired by the medium it explores, are organized and labeled in the discourse that Malamud both deconstructs and embraces: Open, Password, Unread, Compose, Subject, Attachment, Send, Inbox, Cc/bcc, Print, Forward, Out of office, Opt out, Delete, Junk, Delivery Failure." Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Do you feel your consciousness, your attention, and your intelligence (not to mention your eyesight) being sucked away, byte by byte, in a deadening tsunami of ill-composed blather, corporate groupthink, commercial come-ons, and other meaningless internet flotsam? Do your work life and your social life, hideously conjoined in your inbox, drag each other down in a surreal cycle of neverending reposts, appointments, and deadlines? Sometime in the mid-1990s, we began, often with some trepidation, to enroll for a service that promised to connect us-electronically and efficiently-to our friends and lovers, our bosses and merchants. If it seemed at first like simply a change in scale (our mail would be faster, cheaper, more easily distributed to large groups), we now realize that email entails a more fundamental alteration in our communicative consciousness. Despite its fading relevance in the lives of the younger generation in the face of an ever-changing array of apps and media, email is probably here to stay, for better or worse. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic. Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. 0Sometime in the mid-1990s we began, often with some trepidation, to enroll for a service that promised to connect us - electronically and efficiently - to our friends and lovers, our bosses and clients. If it seemed at first like simply a change in scale (our mail would be faster, cheaper, more easily distributed to large groups), we now realize that email entails a more fundamental alteration in our communicative consciousness. Randy Malamud's Email is written for anyone who feels their attention and their intelligence - not to mention their eyesight - being sucked away, byte by byte, in a deadening tsunami of ill-composed blather and meaningless internet flotsam. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic Title Page Copyright Page Contents Part 1: prEmail Part 2: Email Chapter 1: Open Chapter 2: Password Chapter 3: Unread Chapter 4: Compose (draft) Chapter 5: Subject Chapter 6: Attachment Chapter 7: Send Chapter 8: Inbox Chapter 9: Cc/bcc Chapter 10: Print Chapter 11: Forward Chapter 12: Out of Office Chapter 13: Opt Out Chapter 14: Delete Chapter 15: Junk Chapter 16: Delivery Failure Part 3: Postscript Chapter 17: Compose (cont’d): How to write a good email Acknowledgments Notes Part One Part Two Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 5 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 16 Part Three Chapter 17 Index