TingFung,Chu ” Email, the Letter, And the Post”

In this weekly reading, I choose “Email, the Letter, And the Post”  by Mark Nunes, the author describes the development and history of email, how the email this concept came up in the early 17th Century.  Back to that period, people communicate with the mail and the post to post by the delivery. In fact, the process of mailing is basically the same as the email system. Due to technology was not highly advanced back to that time, the email was just a theory. Subsequently, with the internet was developed into people daily, people are able to connect the world through the computer,  the email becomes the essential software in the electronic devices, people just simply open the email box, would receive multiple messages or advisement from Travel agency to promote the cheaper air ticket,  inform people that there is new clothes or shoes or any other kind of promotion. More importantly, email has become part of the life for the modern era, without the email, there will be more inconvenient for the people in this era.

Although when the email came out and being used on the internet, this was the new hit for the people having a new way for communication. Technology, however, will be constantly to change in a period to period. For instance, virtually every single person has a smartphone, not many people are still using the old black and white screen cell phone that only has a few functions for calling and sending the message, no taking photo or recording footage function. The points, people are still relying on the email without it, but once the new device is similar to the email and has been using in our lives, the email will become the history and won’t be using anymore.

 

Source: NUNES, MARK. “Front Matter.” Cyberspaces of Everyday Life, NED – New edition ed., vol. 19, University of Minnesota Press, 2006, pp. i-vi. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.cttttrmg.1.

In Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence author Esther Milne speaks of the origins of what we know present day as EMail. Something I found quite interesting was this concept of language, and its involvement within the creation of electronic mail. An example of this is the “@“ sign, its was introduced by a man named Tomlinson “because his email program required a distinction in the address between the name of the user and the name of the user’s machine” (Padlipsky 148). This symbol was meant to be translated in a specific way in order to describe a specific function, and throughout the chapter Milne shows how it was misinterpreted in the cyber world. The “@“ sign meant something completely different in the multics operating system, interesting enough according to Milne’s research it was interrupted negatively. The ARPANET “interpreted the @ sign as a ‘kill line’ command” (Milne 149). Which led to the debate of what an email header would look like and how it would be translated. Back to the reason I find this interesting is because my deep fascination with language. I’ve always been intrigued about one word, or even one statement being translated in various forms and holding its own meanings. I never thought the same would apply to technology and language, I never thought that the “@” sign is an actual form of language that has become universal and can be used by all people.  

CITATION:

Milne Esther, “Letter, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence” , Taylor & Francis, 2010.

A. Padlipsky, “And they argued all Night . . .” in Peter H Salus (ed),The ARPANET SourcebooL The Unpublished Foundations of the Internet (Charlottesville: Peer-to-Peer Communications LLC, 2008) 506.

Anthony Sierra

10/15/18

Blog Post 10/16

For this week, I decided to reflect on “Emails, Letters, and Post” by Mark Nunes. Throughout chapter three, Nunes highlights how technology evolved from handwritten letters to the convenient process of typing an email. Emails have become the social norm. Also on page 86 Nunes states “In volume, email is equally impressive: the number of emails originating in North America per day outpaces U.S. Postal Service (USPS) volume by over 1,000 percent.” This statistic was recorded in 2006, where emails were at its peak of popularity, but technology was not as advanced as it is today. Being born in 1996 I’ve never seen the true importance of handwriting letters the same way as my parents or grandparents possibly did. The way we send messages and communicate amongst one another has evolved dramatically and it will never truly stop advancing. In the future there will possibly be a time where society only uses voice messages to communicate with each other, making emails obsolete entirely.

 

Works Cited

Nunes, Mark. “The Email, The Letter, and The Post.” from Cyberspaces of Everyday Life. University of Minnesota Press, 2006

”The electronic letter functions less as a material artifact than as a medium. The handwritten letter carries an elaborate signature of presence, concluding with an author’s signature.” (Nunes, 97)

I totally agree with this statement because I personally feel that a handwritten letter has a certain feel and presence about it as opposed to an email that you may recieve. I feel that a handwritten letter has more substance. When reading a letter that was handwritten, you are able to see the person’s handwriting, which gives you a certain understanding about them. The paper that someone had written on has significance as well because you can tell how long ago it was written. For example, some letters dating back years ago may have crinkles and the pigment may be yellowish. This indicates time. I feel like a handwritten letter may be able to tell more of a story rather than your generic digital email that doesn’t have much substance.

 

Sources: Nunes, Mark. Cyberspaces of Everyday Life. University of Minnesota Press, 2006.