Couples Sharing Email Addresses

Doing tech support for an elementary school, I’ve recently discovered something I’d never seen in my 20 years of technology experience: There are a small percentage of couples/partners who share an email address between them, or even have a single email address for the whole family. When I first encountered this, I was sure there must be some mistake, but when I Googled for more on the phenomenon, I found other mentions of the practice.

In most cases, it seems people do this for one of two reasons:

1) People tend to see an email account like the family telephone land line, or like a shared bank account
2) One person in the couple is “not technology savvy” and it’s just easier for one person to manage the email

I have a few thoughts on this:

First, an email address is a unique identity in the modern world, not a shared bucket. Email is not like a telephone line or a shared bank account. You might receive a few calls a day on your family phone, but individuals often receive 100+ emails per day. The volume of email we all have to manage would seem to make sharing an account non-viable from a simple housekeeping perspective.

Secondly, when people write an email, they have a reasonable expectation of reaching an individual on the other end. I’m going to write an email very differently to a couple sharing an address than I would to an individual. If I don’t know in advance that it’s a shared account, that’s not fair to the writer, who naturally assumes that one email equals one person.

Thirdly, to share an email account makes it seem like two people talk with the same mouth. When I’m reading a message, I don’t have any clue who’s actually talking unless it’s personally signed at the end (and emails are often not). Again, this is frustrating for the recipient.

More importantly, we all have dozens if not hundreds of accounts on systems all over the web today. From Facebook to our online banking to stores to school intranets to reading clubs, many if not most of these systems tie accounts to email addresses. If two people share an email account, then many systems cannot manage their individual identities. Let’s take the example of a school intranet that tracks things like contact information, family jobs, individual board positions, photographs, etc. It may also be the case that that system sends email to individuals that have certain responsibilities in the school. The school can reasonably expect that people who are privileged to see that mail are not sharing those private messages with others. It’s reasonable to expect that each parent in that school has their own email address.

Finally, there’s basic privacy / politeness. I’m curious – if you share an email account, do you also open one another’s paper mail?

How To Create Individual Email Accounts

It’s trivially easy for each member of a family to have their own email account, and the basic expectations of privacy that go along with it.

The best/easiest way is simply to create free accounts at webmail providers like gmail.com or mail.yahoo.com or similar. Then all you have to do is log the browser into one account or the other.

If you prefer to use email on your ISP’s domain (such as comcast.net or pacbell.net), be aware that almost all ISPs let you create lots of email accounts for no additional charge. Just log in to their site and find their Mail Help center. However, you’ll have a much better experience on GMail than you will on your ISP’s mail system – there really is no good reason to use an email address attached to your ISP. What happens when you switch to another ISP? You don’t want your email to have to change along with it!

If you prefer to use a desktop email client on Mac or Windows like Apple Mail, Entourage, Outlook, Thunderbird etc., you’ll want to have multiple logins on that desktop computer. That way each family member has their own desktop, their own documents, their own bookmarks, their own email, etc. If you’re not doing that already, take the time to give every family member their own login, then set up your desktop mail accounts from within those respective logins.

Digital Literacy

Managing an email account is the cornerstone of basic digital literacy in the modern world. Not to be brusque, but that partner who is “not technologically savvy” needs to at least rise to the level of being able to send and receive email. An adult not being able to do email in 2011 is excluding themselves from the modern world in a way that just doesn’t / can’t work any more. If you want to go all the way off the grid, OK, but if you’re going to live in modern society, you need to be able to do your email, period.

Anti-Gravity Research Water Bottle Rocket

On recommendation of a co-worker, recently ordered the Skylab Water Rocket kit from Anti-Gravity Research. Got around to assembling it on a beautiful June day, accompanied by Miles and one of his friends. Downloadable instructions were super detailed with great pictures. Hardest part, of course, was finding a 2-liter pop bottle (who goes through that much soda, anyway?) I took a nip, and the rest went down the drain. The rest of the build was straightforward – snip off the retainer ring near the neck, attach the bumper with rubber bands (included), assemble the fins, and attach the guide tube (which slides over a stick to ensure a true vertical launch).

The included fins were really my only complaint about the kit – they’re finicky to put together, and they pop off on impact with every flight. Covered in soapy water, they get slippery, which makes putting them back together even more of a noodle. Have written the company asking why they don’t do a one-piece fin assembly.

Put about 1/2″ of “fuel” (water with 10% dishwashing soap for an extra fizzy vapor trail) into the bottle, attach the high-thrust bottle cap adapter, slip on the fin assembly, and insert the air pressure nozzle. For safety, the kit comes with a 20-foot connector hose, which runs to an ordinary bicycle pump. Start jacking! Immediately, the soapy water creates a foam visible inside the bottle. A few strokes later, the bottle is bulging with pressurized foam.

Anti Gravity Research water rocket from Scot Hacker on Vimeo.

Pardon the bouncing camera as I was pumping with one hand and shooting with the other. Feel the expectation in the air? Love the kids’ commentary.

It’s impossible to know exactly when it’s going to go off – basically whenever the pressure-fit nozzle can no longer withstand the pressure of the foam. But when it does, holy mother of pearl! If I had to guess, I’d say the rocket flew between 100 and 125 straight into the air, majestic!

The 8-year-olds I was with weren’t able to pump hard enough to get it going so that remained a grown up job, but they were fully involved in the rest of the process, and love love loved it.

Recommended.

Update: I corresponded with Ken at Anti-Gravity, who saw this post and responded:

You estimated that the rocket had flown 100 to 125 feet up. If you pump quickly, the rocket will usually keep hanging on until about 60 or 70 pumps, and if the rocket has enough water in it (at these higher pressures it can carry up much more water without tipping over) the rocket can reach 400 feet altitude or more. In our development tests, using a high-strength bottle, the SkyLab has reached an altitude of 570 feet.

Yow!

Venus Fly Trap

Miles:

Do you think a venus fly trap has a brain? Plants are weird. How can anything grow that doesn’t have a brain? It’s as weird as the mystery of where the universe ends. My favorite god is the god of food. If you want to befriend the god of food you have to give him some food. The god of disgustingness wants some brain juice or a booger. The god of technology wants an oversized solar powered laptop.

A Guide to Twitter for Facebook Users

Some of my Facebook friends have been asking why I seem to spend more time on Twitter than on FB, and wonder what I see in it. I’ve started to realize that a lot of Facebook users kind of misunderstand Twitter, and don’t realize how much value is there. The two networks represent very different kinds of parties, and it’s not like you have to choose one or the other – you get very different things from each of them. I can’t imagine not doing both!

Finally decided to put together this little guide to clarify a few things. Hope you find it useful!


Image via Boing-Boing
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