On 11/15/2010, facebook announced their new modern messaging system including the “Social Inbox”. Mark Zuckerberg responded to claims that facebook is launching a “gmail-killer” with “I think Gmail is a really good product”. Techcrunch paraphrases Zuckerberg:
He noted that email is too cumbersome. There’s a subject field, a formal greeting, a closing. Teens are using SMS and IM because it’s much simpler.
While I’m an avid tweet-er, this shift in communication scares me. As Zuckerberg embraces a future that he extrapolates to thrive on informal communication, I mourn the loss of complete sentences. Gone will be the days of full thoughts as sentence fragments and 140 bleeps champion conversations.
Informal conversations helps some let our guard done and speak freely. On the other hand, the inability to hold a thought and expound upon it in long run-on sentences as I do may hinder the growth of truly original thought, ideas and innovation.
Call me an old foggie. My vote is to keep the greetings and closings on communication.