Email: The Variable Reinforcement Machine (Stop. Sending. Email.) | Coding Horror
We desperately need to ask ourselves, and those around us, to revisit the purpose of email. Given what we know about the importance of flow to productive work, and how multi-tasking is largely a myth, is it worth the constant stream of minor interruptions?
We've overloaded email with so many meanings that it has imploded as a communication medium. Need an urgent answer to your question within a few minutes? Fire off a quick email and demand a response! Want to have a long back and forth discussion with several people? Email everyone! Do you have a new theory that you desperately want to explain to someone? Send it to them via email! Got a funny joke or picture you're dying to share? Email it to the office alias!
When we treat email as the kitchen sink of communication, appropriate for everything, it simply ceases to work at all.
Great piece by Jeff Atwood on the diminishing usefulness of email.
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