Although invented in the 1960s, the popularity of e-mail took off in the 1990s. As the cost of connecting computers to the Internet (see entry under 1990s—The Way We Lived in volume 5) fell, e-mail became the easiest way for computer users to send written messages to one another. Its advantages over the regular mail are speed, convenience, and low cost. Word-processed documents, images, sounds, and moving pictures can be e-mailed around the world in a matter of seconds. While "snail mail" (via the postal system or an overnight service) is still important for transporting packages, legal documents, and the like, e-mail is set to become the key personal and business communication tool of the twenty-first century.
Since the 1990s, e-mail has revolutionized global communications. Curiously, it was developed during the Cold War (1945–91; see entry under 1940s—The Way We Lived in volume 3), a period when global communications were highly restricted. The U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) came up with e-mail as a way of communicating between computers in distant government facilities. At first, this was limited to computers within ARPA. In the mid-1970s, it was discovered that users from outside were using the network to send messages to one another. In the twenty-first century, Internet service providers use a very similar system to store messages in personal electronic mailboxes that subscribers can access at will.
E-mail is not just a communication tool. It has also changed how language is used. E-mails tend to be less formal than a letter, so "Dear Christopher" is replaced with a more relaxed "Hi!" E-mails can be written as the sender might speak but, unlike speech, there is no tone of voice, facial expression, or body language to help with meaning. Emoticons, symbols "drawn" using the computer keyboard, work around this problem. Some emailers add a "smiley" ";-)" to show they are joking, or ":-(" to show they are unhappy. The spread of mobile telephones (see entry under 1900s—The Way We Lived in volume 1) in the late 1990s has taken this further. Text messaging between cellular phones (see entry under 1990s—The Way We Lived in volume 5) is a form of e-mail, but the difficulty of typing text using a ten-digit telephone keypad soon led 2 a nu 4m of spelling.
As long ago as the early 1970s, e-mail was used by political campaigners to work for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994). By the late 1980s, it enabled activists in China and the former Soviet-bloc countries to communicate with journalists and supporters in the West. News of the buildup to the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in 1989 emerged by e-mail, as did information about the revolutions in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By the late 1990s, most governments had realized the value of e-mail and the Internet in creating an impression of openness. In 2001, Russian president Vladimir Putin (1952–) went one step further, answering questions sent in by e-mail on a live "Webcast."
Although e-mail communication can be informal, friendly, and liberating, it can also be a problem. E-mail allows writers to hide their identities behind invented names, something twenty-first-century criminals are all too ready to exploit. Adult sex offenders can pose as children in online discussion forums called chat rooms (see entry under 1990s—The Way We Lived in volume 5) with the aim of luring real children to a dangerous in-person meeting. Not being able to see the person with whom one is writing makes it easier for some people to be insulting or offensive. Sending offensive, attacking e-mail is known as "flaming." It is most common in online communities like newsgroups or chat rooms, in which people do not know each other well.
The ability to copy one message to huge numbers of addresses makes e-mail ideal for sending bulk advertising messages, or "spam," to many thousands of people. These e-mails are usually unwanted. By 2001, they were becoming less common as legitimate advertisers realized spam was putting off customers and laws forbid its use. More popular are "chain" e-mails. These work in the same way as a chain letter, but the speed of e-mail means they can circle the globe in a matter of hours. Chain e-mails use up space in mailboxes and waste a great deal of human time and energy. For this reason, chain e-mails can be more costly to business than software-based computer viruses.
In fact, the most serious problems with e-mail are also the problems with older forms of written communication. The speed and simplicity of e-mail simply makes problems more intense. All of the benefits of e-mail are new. Documents can be shared over distances of thousands of miles and senders can receive almost instant responses. E-mailers can communicate with groups of others simultaneously. Travelers can make contact with friends, relatives, or employers without being tied to telephone calls. E-mail has already brought major changes to how people look at work, think about where they live, and who they consider part of their community. In the 1990s, it triggered a revolution in working at home—"telecommuting"—that in the twenty-first century is only just beginning.
—Chris Routledge
For More Information
Hafner, Katie, and Matthew Lyon. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996; also available at http://www.olografix.org/gubi/estate/libri/wizards/email.html (accessed April 2, 2002).
Jordan, Shirley. From Smoke Signals to E-mail: Moments in History. Logan, IA: Perfection Learning, 2000.
Loftus, Margaret. "Great Moments in E-mail History." U.S. News Online (March 22, 1999); http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990322/22hist.htm (accessed April 9, 2002).
Rothman, Kevin F. Coping with Dangers on the Internet: Staying Safe Online. New York: Rosen Publishing, 2001.
Tunstall, J. Better, Faster Email: Getting the Most Out of Email. New York: Allen and Unwin, 1999.
Wolinsky, Art. The History of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Springfield, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1999.