Assignment #10

I believe that email has certainly improved people’s ability to communicate and receive information.  It has never made me believe it wasn’t fast and reliable. The only way I see it not being fast is if someone chooses not to respond for several days after receiving your email, but when you send it, it gets there rather quickly. The only way I see it not being reliable is if you give somebody the incorrect email address or accidentally type it wrong. I like to keep certain emails separate from others, so that is why I have two different email accounts. I use the UB email account for school related emails and also for emails from my bank. These emails I update more frequently, because they are more important. I also have a Yahoo! Email account. This account is for the junk emails and for my accounts with Apple, Buffalo Bills and other stuff. Keeping all of my emails separate improves my ability to receive information, because if they were all together, there could be a better chance that I miss an email and accidentally delete it.

I think that there are many ways that email improves people’s ability to communicate. For instance if somebody has a speech problem or a heavy accent an email would be a better way to communicate, because there is no evidence of a speech problem or accent when you are communicating non verbally. Also, if you are communicating with someone who speaks a different language you could type your email and put it through an online translator, this way you can send them your email in their language and also when you receive theirs you can translate it into your language. This would make it easier, because instead of trying to understand what they are trying to say you can clearly read it in your own language. If you were speaking to each other on the telephone or face to face, you would not be able to use a language translator.

Negative aspects of email would be that you don’t get to enhance your face to face communication skills and also grammar skills. When you are writing emails, you tend to use slang and abbreviated words. This could affect your grammar when writing something that is important. Also, you are not truly interacting with the person you are communicating with. By not seeing the person and talking face to face, you don’t see facial expressions and you cannot tell if the person is using sarcasm or not. I have had many unnecessary arguments over instant messaging, because I was being sarcastic and people took me seriously. When you are using email you cannot hear the person’s voice and the tones they are using, so you do not know how to react to what they say.