Alan's Miscellaneous Stuff Blog

Written Communication, 2021

What follows is an analysis on various forms of written communication and how to make these tools useful to you. Choose the right (write? har har) tool for the right job!

What is available

Most modern people make frequent use of at least a few different tools to do written communication. Here they are:

e-mail
messaging apps (Messenger, LINE, WeChat etc)^[1]
websites (static)—sites you go on to "look up information"; contrast this with a dynamic website like Facebook which has constantly changing/updating content
books and other print resources

Each of these tools have properties that make them well-suited for certain jobs, but terrible fits for others. Through my experience being an Internet nerd, I will share how to use and not use these tools.

E-mail

The basic form of these things is pretty fixed for now. While Gmail and other "modern" e-mail applications might introduce new (anti-)features like various notification this-and-that, the basic functions of e-mail have now been established for decades. The name e-mail accurately expresses what it is—electronic (or digital) mail.

E-mail is good for longer-form, carefully written messsages. For instance, many people will still go to e-mail first for the purposes of...

Reaching the author of a book/paper with a question
Contacting a company to inquire about job openings/offerings
Checking up on a friend/relative who doesn't use social media like Facebook, Instagram, etc
Detailing/documenting some situation or issue and sending a report to relevant parties

Like physical mail, dealing with e-mail often involves the issue of dealing with some accumulating pile of unread or unsorted messages. Before Gmail became widespread, people also had to delete messages to manage a finite amount of storage space. Gmail made the idea of "archiving" mainstream— never deleting anything so Google, federal agents, and maybe you, can easily search past messages for relevant information you won't "throw away" on accident.

This archiving ability of e-mail makes it useful as a log of communications. So suppose you need to have some work done on your home. E-mail communications provide a "paper trail" to make sure everything gets taken care of, workers are fairly compensated, and so on and so forth. Trying to track these things through a messier chat log would be difficult. Having clearly written but thorough e-mail messages written with the intention of being easily searchable and providing documentation beats an app like FB Messenger.

E-mail is thus good for doing work that involves clear, intentional communication. It discourages idle talk because you know that your chatter will be more junk to sort through later. You will annoy yourself later

E-mail is not so good for "pinging" people, multi-party (more than two people) conversations or sending messages that require more than text and/or a couple of images. Many people (myself included) don't constantly watch their e-mail inboxes while working. You probably have better things to do than to stare at your mailbox waiting for the postman—unless you're a dog. So to reach someone "instantly", a phone call, a message on a chatting app, etc may be a more sure-fire way to establish contact. Or, of course, you can schedule a time to call via e-mail.

Threads with a lot of people are difficult and confusing to read—not much more to say on this one.

Finally, the form of e-mails is limited by the medium. If you have to present information in a very specific way (e.g. you have a gallery of photos to share), then linking to a website in an e-mail is preferable to a chain of 25 e-mails each with a giant .jpeg attached to it.

Messaging Apps

Messaging apps are useful for havin conversations in the "digital world". While I think a lot can be said about how "face-to-face" or "in-person" conversations are superior to online conversations, I think we can appreciate how in the modern world most of us often have to interface with the digital veil which rests above "base reality".

Like different physical places, different chatting platforms have different properties. In 2021, Discord is the de-facto "chat room" app for NEETs awaiting government stimulus checks. ² It is a useful place to connect with interest-centered communities—e.g. computer programmers, digital artists, and organic farmers.

Facebook messenger is a go-to place for "real life" contacts. Many people around my age (millennial generation) understand that Faceboook "glows", but this is acceptable for nearly all "normal/everyday" conversations. ³ Deciding where to meet a group of friends under surveillance cameras is already being watched and recorded, so you might as well use the nice IT infrastructure big tech provides to facilitate such a meeting.

Most people you see walking around, sitting on benches, etc with mobile devices probably are using some chat app. ⁴ A fact of 2021 is that lots of people do much of their chatting online. So getting skilled/comfy in these platforms can be helpful for getting stuff done.

Websites (Static)

I'm a big fan of static websites—that is, websites that aren't "social", fueled by ever-changing data contributed by users. You can think of a static website like a print resource you can access via a phone, computer, etc.

Think about useful information you might want to look up:

Recipes to cook
Manuals for machines, programming languages
Charts, reference books, etc

Rather than having a ginormous (paper) library, having easily searchable digital documents can be nice.

At their best, these resources are freely available, don't annoy you with advertisements, and display nicely on a wide variety of devices (like desktop, tablet, mobile).

Print Resources

Print resources can't be changed by some central server and thus are a valuable decentralized data store. You are in charge of the security of these things. You won't be "gaslit" by Big Brother so easily with these materials.

The cost of this is convenience; oftentimes using paper resources may be a slower, more complex process than using digital technology.

Maybe in the long run, however, this is actually good. For instance, I learned how to read/write lots of Chinese characters via the "old-fashioned" pen and paper methods. I am not sure I could have learned what I have with only digital resources.

Summary

In 2021, digital written communications are everywhere. Understanding various properties of each common form of digital communication can be helpful for avoiding useless "innovations" and making the most of existing platforms.

If e-mail does something better, you gain no advantage having everyone in your project switch to some new fancy chat service. Likewise, trying to smash something that is better done via chatting to e-mail will make your inbox bleed and lead to confusion. Some things need no "discussion"—static webpages without comments and stuff can be best for lots of content.

Thinking first of the work that needs to be done and then choosing the appropriate tool is better than trying to use some one tool for 8 hours a day (just because it is in some job description made by some HR person).

Different nations seem to have their favorite "preferred" app. Likewise, there will be online communities centered around particular apps—lots of privacy concerned people like Signal. Neckbeards (ackshual or in character) enjoy Discord, Crypto enthusiasts like Telegram... ↩
Not Employed, in Education, or Training ↩
"Glows" refers to federal agents, government surveillance, etc.; Facebook/Messenger clearly isn't a "free" and "privacy-centric" platform. ↩
I don't have a source. Go back to reddit, nerd! ↩

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