[dragon wench]

I just had this delivered to my inbox via WIN XP News. And it made me wonder, what is your favourite mode of communication?

For me, it depends on the situation. I prefer either in person, email or IM.
I'm often uncomfortable with the phone, and while I still like "snail mail," I like the instantaneous feel of email and IM.


Is E-mail Just for Old People?

A new study on the Internet and American life from Pew Research has been getting a lot of publicity this last week. According to its surveys, the vast majority of teenagers prefer instant messaging to e-mail, especially for communicating with their peers. In fact, researchers say young folks regard e-mail as a "quaint way of communicating with older relatives." Wow. And we old folks thought e-mail was still the "killer app" of the Internet.

This brings up some interesting questions about the roles of different communications methods in both our business and personal lives and why we choose a particular communications type over another in a given situation. After all, if we have something to say to someone, we now have a number of different ways we can do it. The primary methods are: in person, by telephone, "snail mail," e-mail, or IM. Of course, there are variations on these such as fax or teleconferencing, and archaic options such as telegrams (or carrier pigeons).

An intriguing question is whether the choice is really age-specific (teens IM, adults send e-mail and the really elderly still write letters and buy stamps from the post office), a matter of personality (there are "phone people" and there are compulsive text chatters) or purpose driven (e-mail is useful in situations where you want to avoid a direct confrontation and snail mail is even better for those with whom you aren't on speaking terms).

I think most people probably have a preferred communications style. As a writer, I (not surprisingly) generally like written communications. I tend to "think with my fingers" and am more articulate and more comfortable writing things down. For a large part of my life, that meant handwritten or typed/printed letters. Today, I do as much of my business correspondence as possible via e-mail and a good deal of my personal communications, as well. I know others who are "phone freaks." If they have a choice, they prefer voice communications - something that I avoid if at all possible except with the closest friends and family members. Others want "face time" and will go to the expense and effort of driving or flying to see you to discuss matters that seem trivial.

Despite my general preference, I find the phone useful when I need to get an answer to a question right now. However, I'm put off by the voice mail systems used by so many organizations these days. This is particularly true when dealing with public utilities, government agencies, and the like who have a captive customer base and don't seem to feel the need to be consumer-friendly.

The typical call goes like this: you have to go through a long, drawn out process, selecting a language, inputting account numbers, etc. (which wouldn't be so bad if, when/if you finally reach a human being, you weren't immediately asked for the account number again), and listening to a menu of reasons for your call (which inevitably doesn't include my particular reason for calling). Then you wait on hold for minutes that seem like hours. If you're lucky, you wait in silence; if you're not, you're forced to listen to someone else's idea of universally non-offensive music or worse, a radio broadcast complete with commercials. If you do get through to a person, chances are about fifty-fifty that you'll be put on hold or transferred (or both) during the conversation. And if that happens, chances are again about even that your call will be dropped during the hold/transfer. If that happens, you're back to square one: you have to go through the whole thing all over again and explain your problem to a whole new person so he/she can perpetuate the cycle by putting you on hold or transferring you.

Now you see why I consider the phone a last resort. I am one of those dinosaurs who does still actually send snail mail sometimes. There's nothing like a certified letter to get someone's attention. My experiences with the Post Office's delayed delivery (which I've discussed here before and won't go into again) have made me reluctant to use "regular" (non-tracked) mail for anything important, though. As for faxing, regular readers already know how annoying I find it to have to pay long distance charges to send a document that could just as easily be e-mailed.

I think preferences may also have something to do with whether you're a visual, auditory or kinesthetic personality type. I'm visual, and that goes along with my desire to see things in writing (when someone wants to discuss contract terms with me over the phone instead of via e-mail, for instance, I always wonder if it's because they don't want what they say to be "on the record"). As a visual person, I learn best from books, presentations or live demonstrations, and get almost nothing out of audio taped lessons or lectures that consist of someone standing at a podium and talking. That's probably the reason I dislike phones. Auditory people love to listen and kinesthetic people, who like to interact by "doing," tend to be "face time" folks.

That brings us to instant messaging and other "chat" methods (Web chat, SMS). Since they provide visual input, I should love them, but I don't. I like the text aspect of IM, seeing on the screen what I'm about to say before I hit the Send button (that "thinking with the fingers" thing again). I can hardly claim it's a useless technology - after all, I met my husband those many years ago in an online chat. I also find it useful for short exchanges between just a few people. Large scale chats (business meetings, etc.) tend to get confusing as multiple people try to communicate at once, with delays between questions and responses filled in with someone else's questions and lags due to folks who are slow typists or who are multitasking. Nonetheless, I prefer the group chat to a group voice conference call almost any time.

E-mail is still king in my book, though. Unlike chat and the phone, you don't have to worry about whether the person is "there" or whether you're interrupting some other conversation or activity. Unlike the phone and faxing, you don't have to pay extra if the recipient is far away. Unlike in-person meetings and video conferencing, you don't have to get all dressed up or even comb your hair. When I'm at the computer, I'm usually working. To me, IM is intrusive unless the matter is really urgent. Too often, people assume that if you're online, you're fair game. E-mail gets to me almost instantly, but I'm not pressured to reply instantly if I don't want to. Call me old fashioned, but I think it's the best of both worlds.