<p>In mid-July the last telegraph will be sent. The telegraph and its love child, the telegram, and even its bastard cousin the fax, have all pretty much gone the way of the Do-Do. All of them have more-or-less been replaced by a youngster called e-mail, which has actually been around longer than many people realize.</p><p>I would say I was a relatively early adopter of email. Having gotten free access to a unix based account in college, I loved the ability to send a message to a friend in another city without having to find a stamp, an envelope and their snail mail address. And getting a response the same day instead of a week later was very addictive.</p><p>The thing I really appreciated though was the fact that I didn't have to hand write a letter. Since my handwriting and even my printing is atrocious top Egyptologists can't decipher some of it I have used a computer to write letters to my friends since word processors became more prevalent. Of course then I started working in in the 7th Circle of Hell complete with fluorescent lighting, AKA Corporate America and email kinda started to lose its charm.</p><p>Anyone with an work related inbox knows what I'm talking about. A dozen emails to set up a meeting time. Documents attached and edited and reedited until no one knows which version is current. Urgent messages drowning in forwards and cc's and spam. Not to mention the learning curve as people from different backgrounds and stations in life embraced and/or resisted the new communication technology.</p><p><a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/adventures-house-hunting/2013/06/is-it-finally-the-end-of-email/">Keep reading...</a></p>