Can You Hear Me?

EMAIL, EMAIL ALTERNATIVES, AND TEXTING

When email first worked its way into most workplaces, it was part of a dedicated system, a set of interconnected computers limited to little more than email itself, with batch runs of data at night and the infamous sprocket paper—like a slightly more flexible telex machine. Then desktop computers became the norm, and finally laptops and smartphones.

Along the way, our relationship with email was gradually transformed. What began as an effort to make communication of written stuff—scientific papers, hard ideas, things that needed to be precisely expressed—easier between scientists became a way for the rest ...