Blog #4: Email

 Email has long been one of the greatest ways to communicate that still exist today. Wikipedia dates it back to the early 1960s. Wikipedia states, "Computer-based mail and messaging became possible with the advent of time-sharing computers in early 1960s , and informal methods of using shared files to pass messages were soon expanded into the first mail system." 

All though the first email is dated back to the 1960s, there is still some controversy on who came up with the email system. Shiva Ayyaduari was given recognition on August 30th, 1982. Shiva was known for having also

coming up with "a full-scale electronic emulation of the interoffice and an inter-organizational making system that consists of Inbox, Outbox, Folder, and many more features." Shiva was known to have written over 50,000 codes while working for University of Medicine and Dentistry. Although, Shiva was credited in 1982 for email, Ray Tomlinson got initial credit. Ray was an American computer programer. He worked on ARPANET to try and create the email system on there in 1971. He invented the TENEX operation system which allowed him to create a system called CYPNET which transferred files. Thus, files then could be transferred through ARPANET. After Ray's death is when many believe Shiva to have " began his work on the email system and got it copyrighted as his software "Email." Even though Shiva is credited for the system of email, Ray still gets credit for the @ symbol.  However controversy still lies in who came up with features such as: CC, To, From, BCC, Subject, Body, and Attachments. 

Though, confusion on who created email, one thing we are certain of is the wide impact that email had and still has today. When email first got invented it was used immediately by the military and educational systems. Soon businesses were using it as it was known for its simplicity, speed, and extreme low cost. Email soon replaced ways of communicating via paper. In this article, it states that all across the countries, businesses use email for "communication, data transfer and collaboration." Email has been known to be an effective resource in helping aid businesses to be more productive and email has proven to increase data reliability. This new way of communicating dating back to the 1960s forever has an impact on the world today, as businesses, educational systems, military, and many more organizations still use email to communicate today.

Even, though email has had a huge positive impact on how we communicate today, there are still negative side effects. In the business world email is constantly used to communicate for business purposes. However, employees began to abuse email at work, and began spending some of their time sending personal email chats, rather than working. This made some businesses have to set up policies to regulate employees's use of email to monitor and make sure that at the work place only business emails were being sent. Thus, although email has made businesses more productive it also has made employee's easily distracted. Like every new social media platform, it comes with many advantages and disadvantages.