The Age of Information Overflow, Larry David, Group Communication and My Student Ako

Emails, texts and online groups are the modern way most Americans keep in communication with others who they don’t live with. Even if they do live together. People texting each other from the other room. From the same table, when they don’t want to say the words out loud and have others hear it. The most egregious modern form of text over speech — two people sitting at a restaurant, on a date, texting to each other.

Letter writing used to be a primary mode of long-distance communication. By the mid-19th century, the telegram. Morse and his coded letters sent over the wires. Eventually, phones were installed in kitchen walls with thousand foot-long curly cords, occasionally used to strangle people with. In cases of emergency, phone numbers were written out into charts. Person A calls Person B who then calls Person C. These were called phone trees.

Group text chains are now common. Inevitably, a few people are included who would rather not have been included in these endless flows of asynchronous communication. A text chain is like a bus that you can’t leave. Once you’re on the bus, you’re on the bus. To get off the bus is to be rude. To ignore everyone on the bus is usually acceptable.