E-mail is the world's fastest growing communication medium. In 1968, when research scientists first began working on the Internet's processor, their primary goal was to "enable disparate computing centers to share resources" (Leonard 231). Nevertheless, as Eric Allman, chief technical officer of Sendmail says, it didn't take so long before they found out that "the most important thing was the ability to send mail around, which they had not anticipated at all" (Leonard 231). Today, according to the Cyber Dialogue, e-mail use more than 75 percent of the 54.5 million adults. Moreover, according to the Electronic Messaging Association, more than 220 million persons are using e-mail regularly (Dysart). Even thought e-mail revolution caused some negatives in the public and private discourse, the positives out wage them.
First, e-mail is fast and cheap. Average connection to the Internet costs monthly about $20 (Leonard 230). It is the ideal way to reach persons who are difficult to get on the phone. Moreover, it's ideal for international communications because of the expense, problems reaching colleagues and differences in time zone. Also, e-mail is convenient and non-intrusive; people can review and answer their e-mails late at night after the kids have gone to bed. Finally, people can check their e-mails from any computer in the world, for example while visiting, from a hotel room, or even in a car. Two-thirds of the 130 million adults in the United States send three billion e-mail messages every day, equating to 21 messages per electronic mail box per day. To put that into perspective, the .
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U.S. postal Service delivers about 100 billion pieces of mail a year. The Internet delivered 40 times that amount in the U.S. alone last year (Goldhaber).
Second, e-mail helps people to stay in touch with others. No matter where you live and where the people who you want to stay in contact live, by e-mail you are able to stay in touch with them.