Personally I do not think so in the same way as the letter has not died as yet and hopefully never will
By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Recently the Net was awash with claims that email – direct proper email – was about to meet its demise and was going to be replaced entirely by communications via social media and social networking sites. I must say that I very much doubt it.
Email could do with improvement and the style should be brought back of a proper letter for a great many emails. The way some people clobber together emails and reply to them just is very much without style and it would be very sad if we lose the style of letter through email.
An email is an electronic letter and, in my view, should be laid out and styled in the same way as would be a letter, and the style, obviously, differs from whether it is a private or a business electronic letter (email) but both should keep to the style that a letter would also be, unless it is just an SMS kind of quick message being sent for this or that reason.
Communicating via social media in any serious way I cannot imagine ever to really take off and that very simply for the fact that you do not have a way of keeping such messages for “posterity”, so to speak, in the same way as you can emails.
While I do like a proper letter and proper letter style for sure email, in the proper form, as far as I am concerned, has become, as far as possible, my favorite choice of communication, and that simply for its speed.
Sending a letter of even three of four pages with attached pictures and documents, half way across the world in seconds beats the postal service for sure and with an exchange of read receipt you also know, almost instantly, that your letter has been received on the other end.
While I do use Twitter and Facebook (and also forums) as for discussions with friends and acquaintances, etc., I cannot see such forums and applications replacing emails (and proper letters), and that simply for the fact that you don't have a way of keeping a record properly of the conversations.
Social media has its place and it will go forward, of that I am sure, by leaps and bounds and while there is hardly going to be anything new coming up as far as email is concerned email is here to stay and may even become more important in time to come.
For business and private use social media just does not have the security of the email either and thus, I am sure, very much like the desktop PC, it is here to stay and rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
© 2011
