The other day someone asked me, “When did email becomea vehicle for thinking out loud?” I shrugged my shoulders, went back to my office and thought:
- When did every song – ever recorded – become available for free?
- When did people start using text
message as a form of business communication?
- When did the first YUPPIE move to
the East Village ,
Camden or
Wicker Park ?
- When did people decide it was a good
idea to publish their diaries on the internet?
- When did business meetings start
taking place over free video chat services right on our PC?
- When did I get my first gray hair?
- When did people start finding jobs
via networks of folks they never met in person?
- When did it become OK – not just
OK, but actually a sport – to pry into the personal lives of celebrities
and politicians?
- When did music lovers start carrying
thousands of songs in their pockets?
- When did FM radio become the Greatest Hits of the 70s, 80s, 90s and Today?
- When did a semester abroad in China pose the same communication challenges as a trip to the corner store?
- When did people start fast-forwarding through commercials with the click of a button?
- When did Twitter become an acceptable way to pitch a journalist?
Is email abuse rampant? Beyond. Chalk it up to change. Some change is good. Some change is bad. But all change is inevitable.