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The Advantages and Disadvantages
of Electronic Communication
Electronic communication is something which has taken off in a big way in today’s
society. Most people now are familiar with e-mail, text messaging, instant
messaging, and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Each of these
forms of communication has definite advantages, but it is worth remembering that,
relatively speaking, these forms are in their infancy. Many of us may have been e-
mailing for a decade or more now, but people have been using the telephone for much longer, writing
letters for longer than that, and speaking directly (one way or another) since mankind began. There are
many people who have become very used to doing things in the “old” ways, and who are not yet on the
same page when it comes to electronic communication.
The advantages of e-mail are very obvious. Firstly, it is highly convenient. Unlike sending a letter, e-mail
gets there instantly. If someone is looking for a detailed, same day response and cannot get to the
telephone at the same time as you, e-mail is absolutely wonderful as a way of getting the information
across. As well as this, a telephone call costs a certain amount per minute. However long you make your
e-mail message, it will cost the same to send as a three-line update. Once it is sent, it stays in the
recipient’s inbox until such time as they read it and then decide what action to take.
However, as has been mentioned with telephone conversations, there is a body of opinion which holds
that e-mail is a very impersonal and cold way of communicating. Certainly if someone wishes to pass on
news that may be sensitive, e-mail is not the best way to go about it. A telephone conversation leaves us
relying on the inflection in our voice to give the correct interpretation to the words (in the absence of
body language) – and in e-mail, we don’t even have that inflection to rely on. Therefore, e-mail does
have its benefits and cannot be dispensed with entirely as a way of providing customer service, but its
limitations need to be understood.