Use Of English Test 17 – E-Mail Or Snail Mail

Modern technology has brought about enormous improvements in communications and yet many people are still very worried atforwith asabout using the latest computer technology. I am often surprisingsurprisedirritatedirritating to meet colleagues who still don’t know what the ‘e’ in e-mail stands for and they are too embarrassedtiringembarrassingtired to ask.

They assume you have to be skilled intoaboutinto computers to send a message via e-mail but in fact it is the more simplesimplestsimplerthe simplest thing in the world. It is also cheapercheapestthe cheapermore cheaper to send an e-mail message fromthanthatas to send an ordinary letter or a ‘snail’ message which also takes moreasmuchlot longer. An e-mail message is only littleleastslightlyless more expensive than a local telephone call to send; on top of the call itself you also have to pay a fee to your ‘server’. If you send a letter by first-classpart-timesecond-handlow-paid mail it will take a couple of days to get there whereas an e-mail will not take as longlongestlongermore long than a few seconds. Once you become capableaccustomedgoodclever to using the system you will be experiencedpuzzledpleasedamazed at how much more certainskilfulefficientconfident it is than other means of communication. Of course, before you have access to e-mail, you will need a fairly greatlargepowerfulstrong computer, which can be quite expensive.