Just noticed that post on our Simple Living cousin from Reddit and I was wondering if that was even an option to most of us?

Alas, the OP doesn’t share much context on why and how they did it, how they manage their daily activities without using any email.

I know I could not.

I mean, I can live without social networks (the only one I use being Lemmy, it was reddit before that) but I could not not use email.

I would even go as far as to say that removing email from my toolbox would make my life a more complicated and for what gain?

The OP mention not receiving spam. I don’t see much spam, simply because I use a spam filter. They also mention having better conversations than through email. Sure, I can understand that. But I can also have both without any issue. I never discussed much through email—save maybe in the early 90s, when I started really using email and quickly quit using snail mail in which, back then, people used to heave discussion that could go on for… years. With email I do things like create online accounts and stuff like that. I don’t exchange idea, I don’t even chat much. But while I do use email I can still discuss with people by other means.

Maybe email for me is a bit like the smartphone? I seldom use mine and only for practical purpose.

Like, there is no social, no games, no YT, not even… email is configured on my phone. It’s merely more than a phone (to pass and receive phone calls, I don’t message) with a big screen and the very few apps I’m expected to be able to get access to (passwords, 2FA, finances, IDs), and that’s it. But as limited as my use case is not using that phone would make things uselessly and much more complicated for me.

What about you? Can you imagine going email free?

  • Libb@jlai.luOPEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    I don’t know about other people but I don’t consider email to be a stressor, in fact it’s the opposite.

    It is not for me either:

    • spam is dealt with through relay emails, and spam filters. So it rarely is a bother.
    • Unlike with say SMS and messages and, obviously, voice calls it’s easier to take time before replying to an email. Which also helps in not dealing with anything under stressful situation, anger,emotion, whatever. Like we used to be able to do with snail mail. Its slowness impacted they way we were… angry or happy, about anything said.
    • It’s also easier to archive/search old emails, which help in building a trustworthy archive of previous exchange.

    That said, like with message and phone calls and even more so with voice messages (I’m old enough to remember tape message recorders), I had to tell more than a few people I was not a their service, nor at the service of my device and them living &a message of some sort implied no quick reply on my part, if any reply at all. As many would get angry if did not get what they expected. But the stress there, was not because of the email, or the voice message, or SMS, it was because of the interaction I had with these persons. Those who refused to understand how I wanted communication to work between us, well either they quickly were forced to realize I was not useful to them and they quit bothering me, or I had push them towards the exit door. Including some family members. Doing that was so freeing, years later I still have zero regret.