are convenient; communication is not an exception. With regards to the time dimension and real-time communication – these new developments are just as interesting. All channels seem to define different time axes and priorities for messages. Nowadays, an email is comparable to the old-fashioned letter – yet, it has only gained this importance after the popularisation of Instant Messaging and twitter-like services. An email can be ignored. It loses its timeliness much slower and in most cases the sender does not expect an answer in real-time. Nevertheless, the receiver is expected to react in the not too distant future.
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This does not hold true for Twitter. Tweeters know that readers will only ever so often and mostly at random points in time sneak a peek at their Twitter feed. An unaddressed message is sent into a black hole hoping that at least some people will access Twitter at this exact moment… or in the next 5. While in the past only SMS made it possible to send quick, short
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messages back and forth this service is now enhanced by iMessage and WhatsApp: real-time communication that feels like a chat and goes via the internet. The communication partner doesn’t even need to be online as the message can be retrieved at anytime. These message services can force their way into our awareness extremely fast or very slowly. In contrast to the SMS which – depending on the provider – costs a more or less painful amount of money, the threshold for an incidental hello is much lower for these services. I realized that send short greetings to my friends a lot more frequently than before. It just makes the day much livelier and helps me to keep track of what is going on in their lives no matter where in the world they are. The information is trivial – that’s for sure. But even in the old days the information shared via postcards wasn’t vital (see Victoria’s article about postcards of her greatgrandmother on page 111 w). Despite all the positive aspects and the increased networking with far
