By Tomo é Hill.
Our technology-driven world frowns upon lingering. Users—or people, as we used to be called—are not encouraged to spend time in the actual process of communication. Process is a means to an end; it does not equal pleasure. Every device and app we use makes this clear. Somehow we have found our lives increasingly automated for efficiency, yet we feel more and more like it is streamlining us right to death. Slow is bad, fast is good, faster is more productive. Hitting send once isn’t enough. Hit send repeatedly, now you’re getting things done. But like the impossible requests asked of Milo by the demon of petty tasks in the children’s story The Phantom Tollbooth, there is always one more send button to hit, one more thing to post. Our data has become increasingly valuable in the information economy; therefore, technology companies need us to share as much of ourselves as we can. When our interactions are driven by the needs of technology providers, rather than users, personal communication inevitably suffers.
Once we spoke, now we text. Tweets are 140 characters; DMs are a deferral of real communication; Facebook feels like messages tacked on a notice board. For the most part, these new platforms are designed for fast interactions—placeholders for a real conversation that you will most likely never have—or at least, while not impossible, finding the people who are truly kindred spirits becomes a less organic occurrence and more one akin to algorithm. Of course when we do, any negativity or cynicism dissolves in the face of this pleasure—the Saussurean ‘treasure’ of speech that can be extended to the online community and its keystroke interactions—but it does not quite erase the fact that the cacophony of chatter makes this a harder one to unearth.
As that wary prophet of future technology Ray Bradbury remarked about the Internet in Listen to the Echoes, “It’s distracting us… people are talking too much about nothing.” This is the paradox of the modern digital world; the very things that are meant to simplify instead complicate and distract. Communication is at the heart of most socio-technological advances, but we forget that heart belongs to us, and it is up to us to make it beat with real pleasure again. This is where the email—overlooked, much maligned, but vital—shines.
Let’s re-examine slow. Slow isn’t necessarily bad, slow can mean quality. It means thinking, lingering, anticipating. It’s what brings you pleasure and ultimately your reward. Beneath all the texts, posts and tweets, two things remain constant: we want to have personal interaction, and we are still writing. Email is where lovers of words and brilliant conversation can still find that unlimited, quiet writing space, the only constraints being the ones we set ourselves. There is a particular luxury, almost a decadent feeling when you realise that you can write so freely to another person: a family member, a friend, a lover, a stranger. Whether it is the first message in a correspondence, brief and finding its feet, or a long rambling missive—the contents of one’s thoughts pouring out like water from an overfilled glass, there is a flutter: the anticipation of what could be, what is to come. Anticipation is the antithesis of expectation; the latter is the natural result of living in a fast world, a demand that is bound to disappoint because we apply it to everything. There is a philosophical weight to the email that nods to Beckett’s Godot: the entire process is about everything and nothing. What you are waiting for is not the message itself, but something far greater—understanding.
Lovers of the written word are more prone in this digital age to steadfastly hang on to the idea of the email as an old-fashioned letter. Even for those of us who wax poetic about the pleasures of writing longhand, we must grudgingly admit our days and nights are too full to put real pen to paper. We must bow at least partially to the ever-increasing demands of time, and so flying fi
