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Am I the only one using email instead of WhatsApp? Maybe so. I’m having a harder time persuading my contacts – and more frighteningly, my friends – to use email for important messages instead of distracting me with the ping of an instant message. And my failure to impress others is a problem, because communication is a two-way street. Your choices affect my life, and sending instant messages that should have been emails is like snacking on chocolate bars and then expecting me to clean up the discarded wrappers.
Email is wrong, sure – many emails should be a conversation. And if a message is urgent or absolutely available, then instant messaging is great. But as a serious tool for important communication, email remains inferior.
First, it is asynchronous. We don’t live in the 1990s anymore, so email doesn’t scream for attention. The understanding is that if you send an email I will respond at a time convenient for me. Instant messages ping because — well, instantly, right? And while I can turn off the necessary noises from text or WhatsApp or almost anything, that means removing the technology from a real use case to avoid some troubles with people abusing it.
Second, email has its own written record. You can check back, remind yourself of the details and read old attachments. Filing or tagging is easy. True, some instant-message platforms have a way to find old messages – if you remember which platform they were sent to. But as a retrievable record of communication it’s hard to beat email.
(Reasons one and two explain why my wife and I often send emails to each other across the room. It’s not sociopathy; sometimes it’s useful to provide notes and links for something we need to talk about, and it’s always thoughtful not to interrupt someone who’s busy.)
Third, my computer has a keyboard and my phone does not. Yes, I can install WhatsApp on a personal computer, but even if WhatsApp is well checked on Windows (it is not), I don’t want to. This can only be a source of distractions.
Fourth, it’s easy to organize email visually. When I check my email, I see four folders: an inbox, a “to do” list, a “read” list and a “waiting” list. When I check WhatsApp, I usually see emojis. I’m told Snapchat is even worse.
Fifth, it’s easier to customize the way email works — you can schedule incoming messages and set up filters, auto-replies and templates with snippets of text you need to use regularly. You can turn emails into calendar appointments with a click or two. Some instant-messaging apps offer some of this functionality, but all of them are typical of email, many of which have been around for decades.
Finally, there is the problem of enshittification: many instant-messaging platforms have owners with market power and a constant temptation to degrade the user experience in search of profit. If you don’t like WhatsApp and want to use Signal, you need to convince your friends to accept the new platform. This coordination problem gives WhatsApp owner Meta enough time to make your life worse before you leave.
In contrast, there is no owner of email: it is an open standard. You may be relying on Big Tech to provide your Outlook or Gmail account, but you can easily switch if you don’t like it anymore. Nothing prevents you from sending messages from one email provider to another, so if you switch you don’t have to convince your friends to switch with you. This power out is easy to overlook – until you need it.
Of course, sometimes there are good reasons for using instant-messaging platforms. Their encryption is usually better than email; they handle photos better; they can be fun for quick, practical sharing of jokes or coordinating where to meet for drinks.
But that’s not why so many people send texts that should be email. The attraction of instant messaging is selfish. The messages are designed to distract the person they are sent to. HEY, STOP! LOOK AT THIS!
If your message requires that kind of immediate attention, great. That’s why they call it “instant”. But many instant messages are not – they are careless pauses. And because instant-messaging apps don’t have a proper inbox, they don’t consider interruptions that are easy to lose sight of.
If the message is important but not urgent (that is, if the message should be an email), then you are asking the recipient to immediately set aside their priorities to respond to yours – at the very least, make a note to themselves to deal with your interruption later.
Cory Doctorow — the author of Enshittification and an email power user, captured what it felt like in a recent essay: “getting an IM mid-flow is like someone walking up to a juggler working a live chainsaw, a bowling ball and a machete, and throwing him a watermelon while yelling, ‘Hey, catch it!'”
I find this watermelon toss infuriating. Life gives us enough future watermelons; we don’t need people to throw them at us for simple thoughtlessness.
In examining my own anger, I think I understand why I find this behavior so upsetting. I object to being dragged into the mess other people make. The digital world is full of what are euphemistically called “walled gardens”, a term that conjures up an image of a sheltered oasis, but actually means a cross between a doggy toilet and a prison camp. That’s fine if I stay off the open internet, but my friends and colleagues keep insisting they’re having a picnic in the garden and they’ll be happy if I show up.
Every time I receive an instant message that is supposed to be an email, I think the worst: the person who sent it did it because they lost control of their email. Their inbox is overflowing; the traceable, fileable history of communications is no longer an asset but a guilty burden; they don’t trust themselves to be trusted to deal with an email, and so they don’t trust me either.
In other words, their email game is so weak that they might as well fling on WhatsApp. And that dragged me into their chaotic, goldfish-memory world.
Did I mention that all these instant messages are like asking me to pick up your discarded chocolate wrapper? I will change the simile. Your instant messages are like you eating a cheeseburger, while I’m having a heart attack.
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