Communicating by email

And you unconsciously and unwillingly complied to steal their attention and get sucked back in to scrolling posts a bit more – Laurens DC

Plain text. Phone calls. Email.

They are overlooked, but well established, battle-tested, simple, purposeful technologies.
But think about how you communicate with a friend.

First off, you’ve got to remember the platform they are on.
Do they usually send over WhatsApp? Are they active on LinkedIn? Do they scroll Instagram/TikTok every day and DM there?

Are they Snowden-style Linux people who care about their privacy and can’t stop talking about it and use Signal?? (Yes, I love Signal)

Now, you visit the platform.
You see the notifications.
You see the posts.
You are exposed to the attention bait.

Then you send your message.
You are constantly incentivized to keep your thoughts brief.
280 characters.
Not too much nuance or thought.
Just wild, viral statements, preferably.
Personal messages? Keep them brief. Think of their attention span.

Now, they probably get a vibrating pocket or shaking table, as well as an attention-demanding bird-chirp for everyone around.

And you unconsciously and unwillingly complied to steal their attention and get sucked back in to scrolling posts a bit more.

A tree — A photo of a tree, nothing more. Herewith I represent the beauty and mental peace of simplicity, of using simple technologies, of reconnecting with what’s essential.

Of course every platform has its messaging service.
The purpose of the platform is to get you on there, and keep you on there for as long as possible.
Not for you to send a message and connect to people.

And, yes, to a certain extent, email is a similar platform.
There’s a lot of noise coming in. A lot of people want to get your attention.

It takes a lot of effort to properly block, unsubscribe and filter from all the noise.
To not get sucked in and get your attention hijacked to random clutter.

There’s a good chance you’re using Gmail and yes, Google loves to process all your incoming traffic, train algorithms and LLMs, and observe your usage patterns.

But all that being said…

When was the last time you sat down and wrote out a thoughtful, deliberate, long form message directly to a friend?
Where you took the time to sit down and express what you had to say.
When it was really about the message, and the message alone?

A message that was for them and them only to read, completely, privately.
Your experiences, your thoughts, your plans, …
Long form, textual, thoughtful “content”.

Honest, deliberate connection.

What are your thoughts about this?
Share them. Send someone an email.