I don't much like emails and texts as a way of communicating. They are fine for passing on chunks of information but anything that requires conversational exchange even something as mundane as making practical arrangements doesn't work well as it takes several exchanges just to get there. It often takes longer than a quick phone call would.

Another reason I don't like them is that they add to the virtual world that is being created. The standard model for relationships is one of kinship. Family and friends remain the central source of identity and security for most. These ties are based on physical proximity and familiarity. This has always been so and was always limiting. To project beyond these limitations and venture into new associations could be a risky business. It meant engaging strangers with the potential alienation of that. It also demanded other faculties be summoned to deal with unfamiliarity. Social grace, conversational skills and appropriate conduct had to be developed in order to make one's way in the world. Those who did that well were more likely to thrive. The old polite society such as it ever existed with its surface courtesies and false camaraderie may have been pretentious but it did push people to be more directly engaging than they are in the modern age.

So what's my point? Well, emails and text messages alongside all the other tools for virtual contacting allow people to communicate without that the form of engagement that demands skill. Even a telephone call has the physical dimension of an exchange of voices and the possibility of a real conversation. A text is a remote device where from the safety of atomised space a person can make contact. I think that is a pseudo-connection and doesn't hit the spot properly in the way that is essential to personal relations. I think that the so called social networks lack some of these essential aspects of connection. Though such networks may have value they are not replacements for the traditional bonds that are necessary to keep society going.

Another criticism of emails is that they have presided over the demise of the personal letter. I imagine that personal letters are rare artefacts now. Although the letter itself was a rather remote device too it had a respectable history. To actually take the time to sit down and construct words of paper, to think about what was to be said, to establish a writing style that may even have literary merit was all part of the culture of letters. That the physical piece was then transported to anywhere in the world by hand added to its reality. It might then be kept for decades as part of a personal history for both sender and receiver. Emails and texts are largely devoid of such value. They are instantly delete-able. Sentence structure and punctuation are almost inappropriate in the virtual world. Rhythm in the language is lost. Developing style and form is not the thing to do.

So there is the creative loss. There is the loss of the fine old medium of letter writing. There is the bad functionality of texts for doing certain practical jobs like making arrangements. And there is the diminishing of the essential physical, person-to-person connections so important to human relationships. That is why I am no enthusiast for hitting the send button.