Our nation is bracing itself as the baby boomer generation dodders into retirement. Industry analysts have been calculating the stress this generation will inflict on our health care system and eventually our cemeteries. But I don’t think we’re considering the real problem. What about the stress on the interweb?
My mother recently sent an email to my son and me. I noticed that she had the wrong email address for my son.
me:
“Has Grammy ever sent you an email?”
son:
“What? What do you mean?”
me:
“I mean, since you’ve had your email address, has she ever sent you an email?”
son:
“Dad, I’ve had my email address for 2 years. I emailed her as soon as I got it. So she could put it in her address book.”
me:
“Right. And since that time, has she ever sent you an email?”
“She had the wrong email address in her address book.”
son:
“2 years? Didn’t she get a delivery error or something?”
me:
“I’m sure she did.”
son:
“But she never knew what it was or did anything about it?”
me:
“Right.”
son:
“WOW!”
Our boomers also suffer from hearing loss. Tragically, they’re unable to hear phrases like:
“DO NOT SEND ME EMAIL FORWARDS AND OR JOKE EMAILS!”
Go ahead and try it. Scream it, if you like. They still won’t hear (listen to) you.
Even worse, they won’t ever understand simple email etiquette. For example, if you must forward an email to someone, please have the courtesy to trim the chaff, maybe even personalize the message. I had the pleasure of receiving this email from my father-in-law with a staggering amount of chaff. No really, check out the email link. It’s funny.
How many terabytes of bandwidth is consumed by boomer email traffic alone? How much disk space is wasted on the same WMV file depicting a monkey falling off of a branch after smelling his own finger? I’m treated to this gem (and many others) about once a year.
Even worse, they won’t ever understand simple email etiquette. For example, if you must forward an email to someone, please have the courtesy to trim the chaff, maybe even personalize the message. I had the pleasure of receiving this email from my father-in-law with a staggering amount of chaff. No really, check out the email link. It’s funny. 
