Basic IELTS Reading – UNIT 33: Getting Started with E-mail

Getting Started with E-mail!

Electronic mail (e-mail) was started in the late 1960s by the U.S. military. Military officials were looking for a way that communications could be carried out in the event of a large-scale nuclear war. They needed a system that would be very decentralised, reliable, and fast in case central institutions were destroyed. They came up with e-mail. 

Through the early 1970s, e-mail was limited to the U.S. military, defense contractors, and universities doing defense research. By the 1970s, it had begun to spread more broadly within university communities. By the 1980s, academics in a number of fields were using e-mail for professional collaboration. The early 1990s saw an explosion of the use of e-mail and other computer networking tools for a wide range of professional, academic, and personal purposes. A few thousand people were using e-mail in 1980, but it is estimated that more than 25 million people throughout the world were using it in the mid-1990s. 

E-mail is a way of sending a message from one computer to one or more other computers around the world. First, you write down the e-mail address of the person you are sending the message to. Then, you write the message, either directly in a special e-mail software program (such as Eudora, Pine, Elm, or MM) or first in a word-processing program, and then transferring (uploading) it into the e-mail software. You should push a button to give a simple command to send the message. The computer system you are connected to will break the message up into tiny pieces and send them electronically to the destination. The pieces might travel numerous routes through other computers on the way. Usually within 2-3 minutes, the pieces will all arrive at their destination, where the receiving computer will reassemble them into a message. The person receiving the message can check his or her mail box at a convenient time and read the mail. Normally the message would come in two parts: the heading and the body. 

E-mail is both similar to and different from other means of communication (see table). Compared with mail, for example, e-mail is a high-speed method of transferring information that allows rapid exchanges. You can also send large amounts of information by e-mail that would be difficult to communicate by telephone. Unlike the telephone, e-mail allows people to retrieve their messages at any time (although this is possible to a limited extent with answering machines), e-mail allows easier data management than mail, fax, and telephone because all communications and documents arrive via computer and can easily be stored, printed, or forwarded. A major advantage of e-mail is that it allows one message to be sent to hundreds or even thousands of people all over the world very inexpensively. 

You will have to obtain Internet access first to be able to use e-mail as a powerful way of communication. But how do you choose a means of Internet access? The first point is to request and push for your school district or university to provide Internet access. Internet access for teachers or students is seldom granted without a demand. Present a concrete plan to your administration of what you would like to do, based on information in books and discussion with other people, and you will likely have a better chance of succeeding.