Send as Tragedy

I recently finished a poem entitled "K as a Tragic Word" about love loss and texting. I will post it to you later. It dwells about farewells appropriated by text messaging. Now a new book is saying that Send is more tragic. Here's the story.

The Send button, so easy to click, invites us to write too quickly. ("Send" may be the most dangerous four-letter word of the 21st century.)

Unconsciously, perhaps, we believe an e-mail is less permanent than a letter. We imagine it as a casual private message that vanishes into the ether. In fact, it's likely to be far more permanent than any paper communication. E-mails can be stored with ease by the recipients and by third parties, such as the corporations from which they are sent.

An e-mail has a way of making us impetuous. As S&S say, "It actually eggs us on. On e-mail, people aren't quite themselves: they are angrier, less sympathetic, less aware. ... E-mail has a tendency to encourage the lesser angels of our nature."