by John Freeman
boundlessness of, 181
as community, 187
consequences of, 93, 100-101, 194-95, 196
convenience and speed of, 194-95
development of, 95
and Great Britain, 91
highway system as analogous to, 131-33
history of, 86-92
as host for spreading viral minds, 103
importance of, 13-14, 21-22
and manifesto for a slow communication movement, 198, 203
spread of connections to, 93, 99-100
See also specific topic interruptions, 139-43, 178, 208, 211, 213
Interstate Highway System, 131-33, 200
isolation, 16-18, 195, 201-2
James, Henry, 44, 81, 178
Johnson, Steven, 95, 171
junk mail, 55-58. See also spam
Kennedy, John F., 50
keyboards, 95
Knuth, Don, 204, 213
letter-writing manuals, 32
letters anonymous, 49-50, 146
answering voluminous, 54-55
art of writing, 51-53
authenticity of, 48-50
essential, 52
formal, 107
and gender, 32
golden age of, 30-33
length of, 215
preservation of, 180
sensuality of, 107
and time, 85
and writing as means of
communication, 147 See also mail
libraries, 186, 188
Lincoln, Abraham, 38-39, 71
LinkedIn, 102
Listserv, 28
literacy, 31, 187, 196
love poem, oldest, 1-2
Lumeria, 149
machines dangers of, 159-60
dependency on, 189, 194
and manifesto for a slow communication movement, 198
symbiotic embrace of, 11-12, 21-22, 95-96 See also specific machine
magazines, 177
mail address for, 24-25, 29-30
anticipation of, 136
checking, 210-11
delivery of, 171
democratization of, 21
earliest, 20
function of, 26
history of, 24-30
importance of, 25
interception of, 50-51
and loss of public space, 171, 172
newspapers as, 55-56
sorting, 58-60
speed of, 25, 36, 60, 103
success in modern society of, 23-25
volume of, 51, 54-55, 131 See also junk mail; letters; private messaging systems
mail carriers, 27, 40-41
mailing lists, 57, 58
manifesto for a slow communication movement, 190-203
McColo, 123
McKibben, Bill, 109-10, 188
McLuhan, Marshall, 186
McNealy, Scott, 111, 127
media-free time, 220-21
medieval period, 28-29
meeting places, 169-76, 195, 199-202
Meier, Megan, 150-51, 156
Mencken, H. L., 54, 210, 211
merger transference, 144
messenger boys, 79-80, 83
Microsoft Corporation, 11, 123
military, 25-28, 70-71, 88, 90, 118, 132
MILNET, 118
monks, 31
Morris, Robert Tappan, 119, 120
Morse, Samuel F. B., 20, 67, 68-69
mouse, 94, 95, 96
multitasking, 13, 140-41, 143, 179
MySpace.com, 145, 150, 157, 166-67
narcissism, new, 166-69
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 91
National Education Association (NEA), 179
National Security Agency (NSA), 129-30, 131
National Security Archive, 182-83,
natural world, as missing information, 188-89
news, and loss of public space, 173-76
newspapers advertising in, 57, 174
and changes in how and what is read, 177
cost of, 72
decline in number of, 173-74
e-mail as usurping, 174
local, 175, 176
and loss of public space, 173-76
mailing of, 55-56
postage for, 34
regional, 176
and telegraph, 71-75, 76, 77, 173
and television, 170
Nonsense Correspondence Club, 42
“now,” 64-65, 67-68, 77, 183-85. See also time
Obama, Barack, 4, 71, 111
office workers, and e-mail, 160. See also employees
One Laptop per Child, 187-88
one-to-one communication, 98
online shopping, 170-71
Opiniongrams, 84
PalmPilot, 213
Patent Office, U.S., 53
Paterson, Don, 146, 181
patriotism, 68
pens, invention of, 24
phishing, 124-27
photographic technology, domestication of, 99
physical world, importance of, 199-202
pigeons, 27, 74
political campaigning, 53
political lobbying, 84
political movements, 200
politicians, e-mail blunders of, 116
Pony Express, 38-39, 71
pornography, 126, 157
Post Office Department, Canadian, 58
post offices, 33-35, 40-42, 172. See also Postal Service, U.S.
postage, 33-34, 36, 38, 39-40, 54
Postal Act (1845 and 1851), 39
Postal Service, U.S. closure of post offices by, 172
delivery by, 35-39
E-COM of, 59-60
funding for, 36, 38, 57-58
impact of e-mail on, 5
impact of Internet on, 100
patronage in, 35
and second- and third-class mail, 55-58
as second-largest employer in U.S., 24
volume of mail delivered by, 39-40, 131
postal systems invention of, 25 See also mail; post offices; Postal Service, U.S.
postcards, 45-48, 51-52, 107, 138, 147
postmasters, 35, 40
postmen, 27, 28, 40-41
power users, 8
Presidential Records Act, 181
printing press, 20, 31, 198
privacy issues, 50-51, 112-15, 120, 127-31, 149
private industry, and mail in U.S., 36-37
private messaging systems, 28-29
pseudonyms, 146
public key cryptology, 118
Radicati Group, 103-4
railroad, 61-63, 64, 67, 68, 69-70, 77-78, 185
RAND Corporation, 89, 91, 121
reading, 14-16, 142, 176-79, 196
Reagan, Ronald, 182
religion, 31
Reuter, Paul Julius von, 74
rewards, and addiction to e-mail, 137
Rich, Motoko, 178, 179
Richardson, Samuel, 32, 180
Romenesko, Jim, 114
rotulae (scrolls), 28
Royal Mail, 33-35, 76
Royal Observatory, 65-66
Rupp, Robert, 71
Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002), 128
science fiction, 159
seals, 25
second-class mail, 55-56
security, 120. See also hackers; phishing; viruses
self computers as extensions of, 144-45 See also identity
September 11, 2001, 116, 129
sex, 153, 154-55
Shirky, Clay, 102, 218-19
Siegel, Martha S., 121-22
Skype, 95, 216, 218, 219
sleep, 184-85, 220
Sloan, William David, 73
slow communication movement, manifesto for, 190-203
Slow Food movement, 201
social networking, 102, 125-26, 150, 166-67, 210
socio-economic class, and digital divide, 186-88
software, 13
Sontag, Susan, 16, 46, 99
sorting mail, 5
8-60
space boundaries of, 181
boundary between public and private, 183
clearing of, 180
impact of Internet on sense of, 93
information, 95
loss of public, 169-76
and manifesto for a slow communication movement, 195, 199-202
for meetings, 169-76, 195, 199-202
and “now,” 183
technologies as affecting sense of, 64-65
spam, 94, 120-23, 125, 126, 127, 147. See also advertising; junk mail
speed importance of, 197-99
and manifesto for a slow communication movement, 190-203
meaning of, 198 See also specific topic
Stafford, Tom, 136-37
stagecoaches, 36-38
stamps, invention of, 24
Standage Tom, 75-76, 77
Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV), 159
Startt, James D., 73
steam engine, 10-11
stenographers, 44-45, 53
storage, for e-mail, 3
stress, 161-64, 220
subject line, 214-15
Suler, John, 144, 145
Summerfield, Arthur, 40, 50, 58
swindles, 48-51
taverns, as post offices, 30
technology, 77-80, 85, 194. See also type of technology
telegrams/telegraph brevity of, 80-84
for business communication, 76
cost of, 20, 39, 76, 83
delivery of, 79-80, 83
early use of, 20, 69
in Europe, 69-70, 83
funding for, 68
and globalization, 21, 77
government ownership and monitoring of, 76
in Great Britain, 68, 76, 77, 83
for important occasions, 80-82
and information overload, 75-76, 79
and military, 70-71
and newspapers, 71-75, 77, 173
and office workers as telegraph operators, 160
private ownership and operation of, 70
and railroads, 62-63, 66, 67, 68, 69-70, 77-78
sensuality of, 107
simultaneity of, 183
singing, 79
speed of, 20, 103
telephone as competition for, 83
and time, 60, 85
volume of, 20, 73, 76, 83, 84
and writing as means of communication, 147
Telenet, 93, 118
telephone, 83, 85, 154-55, 183, 215, 216, 218
television, 169-70, 188
telex machines, 59
text, face-to-face communication compared with, 106-7
third-class mail, 57
ticker tape, 167
time anxiety about, 79-80
boundaries of, 181
different senses of, 185
and Greenwich Mean Time, 65-66
impact of Internet on sense of, 93
as kept by solar noon, 67
and letters, 85
and manifesto for a slow communication movement, 199
media-free, 220-21
as not uniformly felt, 84
and “now,” 185
and railroads, 61-63, 64, 67, 185
standardization of, 61-63, 66, 78, 84, 183, 185
synchronized, 67
and technology, 64-65, 85
and telegraph, 60, 85
and telephone, 85
time zones, 66
to-do lists, 213-14, 217
Tomlinson, Ray, 20-21, 92
trains. See railroad transatlantic cable, 72
transparent eyeball, 96-97, 154
Trojan horse, 122, 123
Trow, George W. S., 169, 171, 192
Twain, Mark, 37, 43-44, 81, 108
Twenge, Jean, 168, 169
twice-a-day rule, 210-13, 216
Twitter, 2, 13, 167
typewriters, 42-45, 53, 57, 94, 112
United Kingdom addiction to e-mail in, 138
burnout in, 161
United Kingdom (cont.) decline in number of newspapers in, 173
and Internet, 91
newspapers in, 72, 74, 176
study of schoolchildren in, 148
telegraph/telegrams in, 68, 76, 77, 83
time in, 66
universities, 118, 173
Usenet, 93, 122
variable interval reinforcement schedule, 136-37
viruses, 117, 119-20, 123, 127
War Games (film), 118
watches, 78-79
WebWorkerDaily, 211-12
Western Union, 21, 43, 59, 61-62, 66-67, 79, 83
whereness, computers as tool for, 95
White House, e-mails from, 182-83
Wikipedia, 102
work breakdown between personal life and, 195, 209
burnout from, 161, 196, 210
as continuously available, 205
convenience of, 164
and Don’t Send, 207-8
excessive, 159-66, 209-10, 214
group, 218-19
and manifesto for a slow communication movement, 195
and “now,” 184-85
stress in, 161-64, 220
World War I, 75
World War II, 89
writing, as means of communicating, 146-47
Y2K, 170
Yahoo!, 11, 149, 175
YouPorn.com, 145
YouTube, 2, 17, 145, 156, 157, 178, 220
Zilliacus, Laurin, 23, 27, 29, 100
zip codes, 24
