e-mail, going out the door too?

Has anyone lately noticed that aside from work, you don't use e-mail very much? I just realized that I very rarely use e-mail for personal communications any more. I post comments on MySpace pages, or send private messages there too, or post comments on a blog, or send a text-message to a phone, or just call the person on the phone.

Is e-mail going to go the same way as the usps letter? Is it now becoming dated? I have a friend who podcasts her blogs instead of writing them out. This digital age of ours is so rapidly changing.

On the more mundane side of things. I have discovered (for me) the most wonderful pen in the world. It's a Pilot Permaball. Yep, a Pilot-brand pen that has permanent ink--that comes out of a rollerball! It's acid-free, archival safe, blah blah blah too. And, it writes like a dream. I love mine, in black, medium tip.

Web 2.0? It's like pushing digital paper...

So I've been thinking a lot about technology and the cool things it does for us. All of the web 2.0 technologies allow us to track and interact with things in totally new ways, allowing for much easier and natural interactions via technology. However, I wonder at what price is this coming? These are things that most of us simply did not do previously, so we are giving up even more of our limited time to do more new things.

So if you keep a blog or two, contribute to a few wiki's, bookmark your favorite and even not-so-favorite sites using a service like del.icio.us, how is this adding up in hours per day? Per week? Per year? I know that I used to bookmark a LOT in my regular browser window, but did I ever use those bookmarks? Nope! There are only a few that were ever useful. Along this same vein, did I ever keep a diary or journal before? Nope. I've figured out that I now spend about 2-4 hours per week just maintaining my blogs, wikis, and social bookmarks. This doesn't even include the blogs and wikis of others that I read on a regular basis. Maybe another 2-4 hours per week?

So, 4-8 hours per week that wasn't there before. Is it worth it? Is my life more enriched? What am I not doing in order to do these things?

The answer? Homework!