So... Why Not Make Email Services Our New SMS? | Lithium's Note

Our era now is an internet era.

Compared to previous decades, our communication and our access to many things is just at the palm of our hands. Yeah, seriously... before a message comes to our homes in letter, it'll count days or months depending on where each one's letters came from. Then comes telegraph where a really short message is sent because this kind of service is expensive since it'll need connection and electricity that is not free. (Oversimplified explanation by me. Sorry.) And as time goes, letters and telegrams transitioned into pagers, then mobile phones via GSM, then touch screen is invented, email is invented, video calls via 3g is introduced, chat was born, internet started to flourish, social media grows... and PRESENT DAY. Internet became a commonplace to go to in terms of communication and information gathering and dissemination.

Well, I'm not going to discuss a lot on many things revolving to communication on this blog post. The only thing I will try to keep on laying before you all is a suggestion upon using one among tools of communication that seems being forgotten despite having importance in most of our daily use online.

You see, once we acquire a mobile phone and an activated SIM, we can start having a means of communication to anyone anywhere, be it through SMS (texting) or call. The last thing for it to happen is to subscribe either as a postpaid or prepaid user to a telecom company of your choice. Basic ones are regular load (charged n-currency per text or call), call promos and text promos. If you're not "free data" person, you can avail data promos as well depending on how much you need or how much your budget can handle.

But knowing that many of us are now flocking in the internet, may it be watching or reading or listening or anything else, undeniably the service for call and text became less and less useful, and chats and conference became more and more relevant, almost making SMS and line calls obsolete. (Almost, I say, because of course when internet data depletes, these means of communication remains significant.)

Now, I'm not forcing people on either side to remain using GSM services or shift to internet utilities. Only, if you are fond of using internet as means of communication, and if you are only wanting to send more privately than what leading chat services can do... why not make E-mail services our new SMS? (or MS since you can send lengthy messages as well.)

Now hear me out... or read me out?

Whatever, let me have my piece of mind concerning this.

Like our mobile phone number, our email addresses are our essential line of communication that needs privacy. We can't just hand over our own email add mindlessly, right?

While (yes!) there are a lot of scamming and phishing happening right now, utmost care starts from us still. Before anyone can communicate us, they ask for our contact info: phone number if via GSM, email add if via internet data. This sets quite a difference compared to most widely used messaging apps, especially those that are linked to social media accounts. (Not that that's bad, finding one's name gives us ease to reach somebody in web space.) After all, who wants to have their inbox blasted with a bulk of messages, mostly useless or unwanted ones?

What can email do as an SMS alternative?

• First and foremost, of course a given one, it can send and receive messages.
• You can have specific tags or folders where particular messages automatically move (especially if you've subscribed to a letter group or you used your email as a primary for social media updates).
• Mass messaging. If you add email adds to your list of contacts and put particular ones in a group, once you typed their group name, all of their addresses will be added with ease. (If recipients became full, you can use Carbon Copy [Cc] as well if your group is more than the limit.)
• Attachments. MMS can do this, but sadly its service end since messaging apps can do most of what MMS can. 

What more can email do that messaging apps can't?

• Formatting and designing. You can make an e-letter like you're using a stationary paper with lovely designs and your writings color-specific and font-particular, making your email not boring to read.
• Adding subject to your email. Doing so can give recipients an idea of what's in an email before opening them. (Not just a To-From on an envelope.)
• Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc). You can send a copy of your email to someone important without giving away their own email address. Most useful in a company of business that needs report from lower ranked employees and whatnot.
• Potential spam and other dangerous and unrecognized emails can mostly be filtered immediately compared to posted links on social media and chats/messages, and you can immediately report any unfiltered messages as spam should email service failed to spot it. You can also report mistook emails as "not spam" if you found out that an email legitimately came from trusted email addresses.
• Mark things as important. While pinning a chat will put it into priority of being read first before other chats, not all in the chat oftentimes are important. Things that need urgent reading will be visible and can be read in one label/folder, which saves time and effort if scanning and picking through a lot of mails.

Well, I want to add extra mile on this, but because there are available videos and articles/blogs/post on how to use mail services such as Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Outlook etc., you can search for it either via search engines or via YouTube.

Below is my suggested video out of quick search.

To temporarily end this post, email is an effective tool of communication on smartphones today. In this era where internet became a place to do most of our works and entertainment (or anything we can see it useful), when we need to adapt to changes, switching from SMS to email is not as hard as you think. You can start by just plain text to anyone, then little by little learn its functions SMS don't have. When you need an anonymity that messaging apps missed (probably), just remember your email address and give it only to people whom you trust. After all, no one can find your contact by simply typing your name on To: section.