The Trouble With a Great Technology

What was life like before the proliferation of e-mail? I can barely remember anymore, but I do recall that my daily activities weren’t so tightly tied to this electronic box called my computer.

Please don’t misunderstand. I love the conveniences that e-mail enables. It allows me to let everyone on the staff know when I’m changing the editorial production schedule. I can communicate easily with readers, or exchange messages with my sister when our time-zone difference makes phone calls unwieldy. I get terrific opt-in marketing messages from my favorite catalogers, and informative newsletters from trusted publishers.