When Even Legitimate Emails Are Overwhelming

from the what-can-you-do? dept

There have been plenty of stories about the so-called (and greatly exaggerated) "death of email." Almost all of these, however, are discussing the problems associated with spam. Professor Lawrence Lessig is discovering a different kind of problem. As he's become something of a net.celebrity he's started receiving so much personal email that he can no longer effectively respond to it all. He even sent out a note telling people he hasn't responded to that he's given up and will not be responding to their email - though, he's quite sorry about it. Still, as some people in the article point out, no one says he needs to respond to every email he receives. If someone is emailing him who does not know him, he shouldn't necessarily feel obligated to respond to each and every message. In some sense, this does raise the question about the definition of "spam" again. If spam is "anything I don't like," is getting to much personal email spam as well?

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