E-Mail: An Overview

E-mail.

It’s something many of us say we couldn’t live without. Although many people associate e-mail with teens, or a “younger generation”, the use of this technology is not isolated to one age group. A survey conducted by Statistics Canada found that more than half of people over fifteen, and living in urban Ontario, had used e-mail at least once in the previous year. E-mail has taken a hold on modern society in an extremely rapid way, especially considering how new this technology is. Although it was technically invented in the late 1970’s, e-mail did not become commonly used in the public until the mid 1990’s, with the emergence of companies like America Online. E-mail has many uses today. We can use it to share pictures, documents, jokes, or even websites. We can talk to our friends, or send projects to co-workers or teachers. We can even use it to receive on-line newsletters. E-mail has an application in almost every aspect of our lives. Paper mail has become nearly obsolete, since the evolution of convenient electronic communication. The speed at which e-mail has “taken over” is completely incredible, when you take in the fact that the first North American postal system, albeit an informal one, was created in 1692, making postal mail over four hundred years old. This simply proves the power of this new technology.