journal features
movie reviews
photo of the day

the death of email

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Kokubunji, 2020.12.31

This time last year I recorded a count of the emails I'd received through the year. This year it's down again dramatically. I'm still unsubscribing from things, but I've also been corresponding with far fewer people, and a fair bit of active day to day communication is now happening on IM platforms like Slack and Line.

2017: 18,000+
2018: 11,800
2019: 8,900
2020: 3,790

The rates of decline are:

2018: 34%
2019: 25%
2020: 57%

I wonder if I can get it to below 2,000 in 2021. One thing that I've enjoyed is moving my @werneburg.ca domain to Mailfence in Europe. Highly responsive, error free servers (unlike the Canadian provider I was using) and none of the complications of hosting on gmail.com (as with @emuu.net).

Mind you, I still get 100 emails a day at work, which at 250 work days a year means I'm dealing with 25,000 a year there.

rand()m quote

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov