

Ask HN: Do you email your best friends? - jtesp

Social networking is convenient and entertaining, but is that it?  I can count my best friends on one hand and none of us are friends on Facebook and we don't even email each other.  When we want to communicate, we give each other a phone call.  Text messages are very rare as well.<p>Is this normal?  Why?
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acconrad
Really depends on what I'm trying to do. Coordinate a ski trip? Email best
friends. Going out for drinks? Text. Got lost to the bar? Call.

So yeah, I email my best friends.

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stoney
Basically I do this too. But I'd add: Moved to country in vastly different
time zone? Put pictures on facebook and send newsletter style email every now
and then.

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malmros
There are three forms of communication (typically): verbal, written, and
gestural. Verbal is either face to face - and often is heavily laced with
gestural - or via telephone. And of course written in all its wondrous forms.
Also the most "difficult" of the three. (Pardon... if I seem to be
generalizing...) If you think about it, social networking is like a "holiday
note" stuck in the card... sent to everyone on the list - but continually. You
could do the same with email and then you would retain some ownership of your
content. And Twitter is everyone's text messages - which would be spam if you
got in your inbox. But it certainly is entertaining for some reason. I tried
using Twitter as an RSS feed... eh! Actually, everyone has an email that uses
a "social network"... so why not just use email? Email is peer-to-peer ... and
creative developers could easily come up with a Facebook like email GUI. So
you parse all your friends emails into a nice timeline and profile page... and
when you update, you would send out a "group" email to your network - or
select subset... and they would get it parsed out in their GUI. That's really
all FB is... or Linkedin. What's the first thing they want to do when you sign
up? Get your email contact list! So in essence, we give them our contacts and
content so they can tell us what we can and cannot do with it (TOS) and then
inundate us with more spam. What am I missing here?

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valjavec
I use all forms of communications, rank them according to urgency and how
distracted I want to be when I get anything back.

In that order probably: Phone call, SMS, Gtalk, Skype, Facebook, Email

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mattcofer
Typically, I Google Talk with my closest friends and wife. Luckily they all
use Android phones so they are always a quick Google Chat message away.
Facebook is great for inviting friends to events (easy to cheat and use your
friends list as a hint to make sure you don't forget anybody). Email is good
for personal pictures and touching base with family. Phone calls are really
only for when I need an answer now or talking to my Dad who doesn't use any
social media, Google chat and rarely checks his email. I don't like the phone
because most of the time you aren't really saying much anyways. Why not just
get off the phone and send me a message when you've made a decision? I don't
need to listen to you think.

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kachhalimbu
I moved out of India few years ago and now live in Taiwan. Most of my best
friends are in India but few are in US. I have tried all sorts of things
personal blog, posterous group blog,google group,google site and other social
networks such as Facebook and Orkut but finally we have settled on exchanging
emails as the only way to keep in touch. I think it is perfectly normal. Some
of us were bothered by having to to leave their inboxes and go to some other
website just to check on our group messages and also email provided sort of
privacy we were all comfortable with. Almost all of us use gmail for the
threaded conversations (gmail) which are great for these sort of emails
(photos/events/outing reports)

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jtesp
Thanks for responding...just the answers I expected. Communication is changing
at an alarming rate, we are literally in the middle of the communication
revolution. It's interesting to think about how humans will interact in 10
years.

~~~
sagacity
>It's interesting to think about how humans will interact in 10 years.

You could say this again!

In about 10 years from now, I think the population of what have been described
as 'digital natives' would probably hit 40/50% mark (if not higher).

I too think it'd be _very_ interesting to see the state of communication and
human interaction methodologies at that point in time.

IMO, (much) greater degrees of convergence and unification are almost certain.
In what forms and styles, only time will tell. (And a handful of bright
startups with the right ideas at the right times along the way would be the
next billionaires :)).

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manish_chhabra
I think every means has a different purpose. People upload their pictures on
social network and just share them with friends they want to. When you are at
work, it is easier to chat/email/sms than a phone talk. CALL.. if you are
after a real quick response!

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nomad2986
I definitely text my friends a lot but not email at all. I think it's kind of
odd not to be friends with your best friends on facebook but that being said,
I don't actually communicate with my best friends that much on facebook.

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wladimir
Sure, I e-mail my friends sometimes, when I want to send something around
(interesting links, pictures), or to coordinate things. But I guess that's
pretty old fashioned, I don't use Facebook or other social networks.

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rrhoover
I don't even know the email address of any of my friends. We also very rarely
talk on the phone. I communicate with my buddies back home 95% of the time via
Facebook and txt.

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remthename
I do not email any friends. I am in my twenties. Before Facebook it was
another social network, before that it was IM.

EDIT: I do chat to friends on Gmails chat.

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jtesp
It appears that social networks are pools of acquaintances. Hmmm
interesting...

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Mz
Basically, if you can't do email, you can't be my best friend. But, then, my
best friends tend to be met online and tend to live far away. My life isn't
remotely "normal".

