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Monday, September 22, 2014

The Start of Electronic Mail

I chose to study the start of e-mail because it is such an integral part of life, in present day. It has an infinite amount of possible uses, such as business, academics, and staying in touch with friends. "E-mailing" began in the 1960s and 1970s along with the invention of the Internet. As an emerging "product", the idea of e-mail was most likely sold as a quick, easy way to contact someone else with desired information. It's first early uses in newspapers seemed like there was doubt building up against the scale of mail that would circulate with the use of e-mail because it would become so easy for everyone to send out multiple e-mails and companies would not be able to handle the masses of mail that would flow through their inboxes. Its uses in scholarly articles seemed to begin in the 1980s because its early origins were a little unclear to users in its early stages. But it looks like people got a better understanding of it because one article said that e-mail is not really similar to conventional mail because it allows you to transfer text/images to a desired recipient.
I would say that e-mail's meaning has changed significantly from what it first was because it was not exactly what the public expected from it. It has become something that we are able to control and comfortably use as a society. Nowadays, when people say "e-mail", they use it as a way to communicate with another person because it has become such an easy tool to use for quick, easy communication.

2 comments:

  1. I find it crazy that email, something that as you pointed out is a major part in our lives, only really began about 35 years ago. I definitely can understand the concerns of people in that time, but you are definitely correct in that we can now control and comfortably use it in today's society.

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  2. Email has definitely changed the way people around the globe communicate on an instant level. There is no mail man delay and a letter can never get lost through email. Businesses can flow a lot smoother without hundreds of letters a day to open and lots of paper waste.

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