So, this thought, instead. I am amazed at how much we have grown to hate e-mail in our culture. It is a bother, it is spam, it results in an obligation to contact someone else or take care of some business that really isn't that pressing but since it's right in front of our face, we have to deal with it. I know that this is the pervasive sense of what e-mail means to people in the Western world because, well, look:
Look at what? you might think. Well okay, fair enough. It's just a screen shot of my computer before I started writing this blog. It's my Gmail inbox. So what?
Well, look closer. I have the inbox set so that all the unread messages filter to the top, separated from anything else I've managed to take care of. See there, under where it says "Unread": Google has taken it upon itself to make this empty inbox a joyous occasion. "Woohoo!" it says, "You've read all the messages in your inbox." (I'm surprised it's not followed with, "Now, go grab a beer and relax. That was hard work!")
Truth be told, this little message makes me sigh. I have no pressing e-mail business. No new bills (okay, not so bad). No new announcements about movies at the Guild (I asked to be removed from the mailing list, so that's my own fault). No new messages from friends or family (I MISS you guys!).
But the truth is, it's just an apt little commentary on how much things have changed. A few short months ago, I would have resonated with that "Woohoo!" and probably gone and grabbed a beer after all that hard work, paying bills, sifting through special offers, reading e-mails about jobs or from former professors or students, or Peace Corps updates... Today, that stupid "Woohoo!" kinda irks me, but I guess it would probably be bad marketing for Google to offer alterna-text in the form of: "Geez, loser! Go outside and play in that 105 degree heat!"
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