To: the “reply all” of the world
Despite the newer technologies these days, the use of email in work environments is still ubiquitous (for good or bad). Indeed, knowledge workers (whatever that means) spend a good amount of time sorting things out in their inboxes, trying to make sense of what’s useful and what’s not.
Have you ever received a “reply all” email chain, even though it was clearly stated in the original message, “not to reply all.” I guess we all have been on the receiving end of this communication.
My question, is why? No, I don’t want to see your cat pictures. No, I don’t want to congratulate people that I don’t know and will never meet. No, I’ve never heard about this potluck before (I won’t bring the mashed potatoes).
My bigger point here is not really how annoying this could be. It’s really about our ability to pay attention, and how that becomes more difficult to do at present. All this, with multiple things/tasks competing for our attention, with the main one being smartphones and all of their call for our attention. This is just one of the current problems regarding the use of email as one of the main ways of carrying out cognitive work. It’s also one of the reasons, why some people have come to ignore email altogether.