JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

I don’t like e-mail.

I realize that such apostasy is comparable to disliking the flag, the

electoral college or even Barbara Bush. But I have arrived at this

conclusion judiciously and without prejudice and not because -- as we

used to say in Indiana -- I am sot in my ways.

All of this started several months ago when my wife acquired one of

those newfangled computers that can pull in the number of gas stations on

Mars or the odds on blackjack or the names of Martin Van Buren’s Cabinet

in a flash if you just know which buttons to push and pull. It also

brings in e-mail.

Before this invasion, my contact with a computer was mostly limited to

the word processor on which I am presently writing. I’m not sure of its

exact age because it came to me secondhand. My original computer began

losing my copy rather regularly, which may not have bothered posterity

but irritated me no end.

My computer consultant is Ron Darling, who lives across the street and

makes his living practicing law. He finally got tired of coming over to

try and bail me out of my technical problems and gave me a computer his

office had discarded. He also installed it for me, and it has worked just

fine over the years. Never lost a single word. And it has the added

advantage of being inaccessible to e-mail.

That was the situation when this new element was introduced to our

household, resting on my wife’s desk at home while she was at work. It

was strongly suggested that it would be foolhardy of me not to take

advantage of this opportunity to broaden my life -- especially by

enjoying instant communication through e-mail with other human beings who

may or may not have something of substance to communicate. While still

dubious about this, I was given an e-mail name and code, which I have no

intention of revealing here, thus making it possible for complete

strangers to send me bad jokes.

My wife explained to me several months ago how to access and send

e-mail. She has explained it to me again several times since. There is a

growing sense of impatience verging on irritation in her instruction,

which is not conducive to learning. She cannot believe that anyone could

be as technologically retarded as I appear to be.

A close friend who has tried to contact me by e-mail expressed the

same impatience, telling me that his 86-year-old mother, who can’t change

a light bulb, mastered e-mail in no time at all and is happily

communicating with all sorts of people.

These critics are off base. I can master technology when I’m properly

motivated. I scored well in math all through school and consistently

pulled 4.0 scores in ground school when I was learning to fly Navy

aircraft. I wasn’t particularly interested in any of this information and

forgot most of what I had learned as soon as it was no longer required of

me, but the motivation to master it in the first place was strong. And

that’s what I’m lacking with this e-mail shtick.

After several months of research, the following observations about

e-mail have become clear to me:

* It is frequently neither the best nor the most efficient way to

communicate. My wife checked my e-mail last night, for example, and found

a week-old invitation from a close friend who shares my passion for

basketball to join her at a UC Irvine game tonight. I was able to reach

her in time, but one more day would have been too late. If she had simply

phoned me in the first place -- or when I didn’t respond -- there would

have been no uncertainty. My telephone answering machine is one

technological device I have fully mastered.

On the same point, people in offices frequently communicate with their

associates by e-mail when they could walk across the corridor or a few

steps down the hall and simply say what they have to say. This is

carrying technology to absurdity.

* E-mail trades on guilt. There is something in the human psyche that

requires us to respond to an e-mail message, no matter how frivolous or

flip it happens to be. There it sits, demanding our time and attention

and lathering us with guilt.

* E-mail may, in a few years, totally destroy the art of letter

writing. E-mail by its very nature requires staccato writing. Billboard

sentences, exclamation points, verbs without subjects and vice versa. It

is too often conversation in the guise of writing, conversation without

inflection or tone or body language -- and sometimes without thought.

* E-mail denies the recipient the sensual experience of holding a

piece of paper on which a message has been written, which used to be an

important part of the letter-writing process.

Now all of this can be easily dismissed as the grumbling of a fossil

unwilling to accept and enjoy change. That is simply not true. I was one

of the first people on my block to have an electric typewriter and a CD

player in my car, and I’m learning to tape TV programs because I am

properly motivated.

All I need is a little motivation to move me into the e-mail orbit.

Meanwhile, I’ll probably continue to use the telephone and even write

some letters. In longhand. On paper.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.