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        Tower of Babel - M.C. Escher

By Larry Kilbourne

Today's Wall Street Journal carries an interesting article by staff reporter Jessica Vascellaro entitled "Why Email No Longer Rules...and what that means for the way we communicate." 

Vascellaro reaches her conclusion by way of surveying the growing influence of social media such as Twitter and Facebook as alternative means to communicate which by-pass email entirely.

While it's an interesting thesis, it's conclusion I think is overblown.  Email remains alive and well.  Has it had to accomodate new media?  Certainly.  But far from displacing email, both Twitter and Facebook rely on it as an essential component of their own communication processes.

For example, whenever someone new follows me on Twitter, how do I find out about this?  Via an email from Twitter that announces the fact, with an embedded link allowing me to see who is following me.  Same with Facebook: when someone sends me a friend request, I know this not only via a message in my Facebook account, but through an email sent to my Yahoo account.  Ditto with responses to comments I make to someone on Facebook, or to other comments made on a topic I've responded to.  In both cases, I find an email awaiting me in my Yahoo account informing me of these replies. 

Indeed, the email alert sent to me is much more convenient than the alternative method of tracking down comments and responses on Facebook, which would involve me having to scroll through the entirety of my News Feed at various times throughout the day.

So while Ms. Vascellaro is certainly right in pointing out the growing influence of other social media in addition to email, her reports of the latter's demise, like those Mark Twain noted about his purported death, are "an exaggeration."

In truth, the real nugget of wisdom in her article is found in its final point:

"You can argue that because we have more ways to send more messages, we spend more time doing it. That may make us more productive, but it may not. We get lured into wasting time, telling our bosses we are looking into something, instead of just doing it, for example. And we will no doubt waste time communicating stuff that isn't meaningful, maybe at the expense of more meaningful communication."

Yes, evolving social media are making it easier to communicate in near instantaneous time just about anything, to just about anyone.

The question is, is anyone really interested in what's being said?  Is what's being said of any consequence?

In the words of one of William Gaddis's characters in his novel JR, "There have never in history been so many opportunities to do so many things that aren't worth doing."

Whether the enhanced communication pathways now available fall into this category is an issue that at very least deserves serious reflection.

Copyright © 2009 by Larry Kilbourne, Ph.D.