[For my
annual Thanksgiving series,
I thought I’d
express my gratitude
for some of the best of our 21st century digital age and what it has
contributed to my work and life. I’d love to hear your thanks, for anything and
everything, as well!]
On what’s not
new about 21st century communication, and what is.
First, a
confession: I’m an email addict. I think the addiction has served me well in my
teaching—a number of students have remarked, in evals and elsewhere, on the
speed with which I respond to their email questions and submissions; while I’m
well aware of and sympathetic to the
concerns about such email conversations, I also believe they’re an inescapable
and integral part of 21st century teaching, and represent one of my
strengths as an educator. But in my life more generally, I’ve had to find ways
to take breaks from email accessibility, to put the iPhone away while spending
time and playing with my boys, and so on. In this age of cell phones and
smartphones, texts and voicemails, our constant appearance of availability can
be a genuine problem, and thus learning
to turn off that accessibility is a vital 21st century skill to
be sure.
On the other
hand, I think the differences between email and prior forms of communication
can be and often are overstated. There’s a stereotypical image of hand-written
letters, for example, that portrays
them as meaningful and personal in a way that emails are not and could
never be. While I understand that image as a contemporary contrast to emails, I
would argue that anyone who reads letters written
by historical and cultural
figures will be struck instead by how much the majority of them tend to
read like emails: intimate and immediate expressions of perspective and
conversation, written not in formal prose but in personal voices, not for
posterity (although some
letters certainly were) but for their occasion and audience. As always, overly
simplistic historical contrasts and comparisons need to be complicated and
tempered, and I’d certainly make that case for critiques of emails in
comparison to other forms of communication.
There are
definite differences that email brings with it, however, and I would highlight
one that has been very beneficial for my career: the ability to send messages
to large groups of recipients at once. Having planned New
England ASA colloquia and conferences,
participated in the activites of the Northeast
MLA Exec utive Board and the Encyclopedia
of American Studies Editorial Board,
and taken part in any number of group email conversations—as well as having
used email lists to stay in touch with all of my classes at FSU—I can’t
emphasize enough the benefits such communal conversations offer for every aspect
of this profession. We—I—might have to learn to balance our emailing as part of
our 21st century identities, but I’m deeply thankful for what the
medium adds to my work and life.
Next thanks
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other AmericanThanks you’d share?
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