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October 1, 2003
Gelernter on email overload.
Posted by Clay Shirky
David Gelernter has an essay on the problems of email _even if we assume the spam problem gets solved_:
too much legitimate mail, and the attendant damage on our ability to manage conversational contact:
Here's how it works. You get an email (maybe longer or more complicated than average, or from someone you don't know); you have no time to respond right now, but you mean to answer--but other emails stack up, and you answer those first--but you still plan to reply--but more emails keep arriving. . . . Meanwhile the sender is wondering: Is he ignoring me on purpose? (I'll cross him off my list and forget about it.) Did he mean to reply, but has since forgotten? (Resend my message.) Or does he still mean to reply and just hasn't gotten around to it? (Don't get mad or resend.) All three possibilities are real, and happen all the time.
As volume rises, more email conversations trail off into nothing for unknown reasons, the medium is devalued further, and the problem gets worse--people set even less store by a mail message, send one out on even less provocation, volume rises, more email conversations trail off into nothing for unknown reasons, the medium is devalued even further.
He also proposes a pair of rules for dealing with the overload problem (the ACKNOWLEDGMENT rule and the RESEND rule) and software for implementing those rules.
Comments (3)
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1. Bill Seitz on October 1, 2003 1:41 PM writes...
Perhaps this is a sign of lack of focus, either for you, or for your organization?
Or maybe a lack of delegation, or tendency toward micromanagement, resulting in people's need to consult you for every little thing (and take no action without your response)?
Permalink to Comment2. Zack Lynch on October 1, 2003 2:02 PM writes...
Email pricing would solve this problem. Prioritize emails by the price the sender is willing to place on it. If it ain't worth a buck to them, then you shouldn't even look at it.
Permalink to Comment3. Bill Seitz on October 1, 2003 3:11 PM writes...
Other issues:
The time lags probably need to be subtly negotiated in every group.
More importantly, they probably don't make sense as a general per-group rule because sensitivity/priority is message-specific.
Also, in a group email thread, things will have moved on without you.
Maybe more to the point:
* once you've read the email, you might as well send at least a terse reply, rather than a meta-only "will reply later"
* t seems like you'll just end up with a growing backlog of stuff that you committed to reply to.
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/z2003-10-01-GelernterValidEmailOverload
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