Internet : Electronic Mail

Internet : Electronic Mail

The System

Electronic Mail (email) is a system which allows users of a computer network to send messages to each other. Users can usually :

Send a message to another user, or group of users (whose names are on a mailing list).
Keep their messages in a mailbox.
Read, print and delete messages from their mailbox.

Each user has to have his or her own address that other users need to know to send messages to him or her. An example address is :

mark@mwchemicals.co.uk

An email system can transmit other types of information as well as simple text. Pictures, music, videos, in fact almost any sort of information that you can think of can also be sent. This is achieved by attaching files created in another package such as a word processor or drawing program to the end of an email message. These files are known as attachments.

The Software

To be able to use email you need email software. A typical email package will let you :

Send and receive email.
Add attachments to emails that you send and read attachments from emails sent to you.
Reply to an email that you have received without having to type in the email address of the person to send the reply to.
Send a copy of an email you have received to another person. This is known as forwarding.
Organise the email messages that you have received into folders so that they are easy to find. Newly received messages are usually stored in an Inbox folder and sent messages are stored in a Sent or Outbox folder. The user can create other folders to suit their needs.
Store a list of people that a user regularly sends email to so that the user does not have to remember their email addresses (an address book).
Send the same email to multiple people at the same time. The list of people to send an email to is stored in a mailing list.
Add a digital signature to an email that you send. A digital signature can be used by the recipient to verify the identity of the sender of the email and that the message has not been changed.
Attempt to filter the emails that you receive to remove SPAM messages.

Advantages and Problems

This table summarises the advantages and problems of using email :

Advantages
Speed	Electronic mail arrives much more quickly than ordinary post. An email can arrive anywhere in the world within a few seconds of it being sent.
Cost	The cost of sending an email is very low. It is much cheaper to communicate by email than by post, fax or telephone. This is especially true if the person you are communicating with lives a long way away.
Accessibility	Email is very accessible as you can read your email on any suitable computer anywhere in the world. You do not have to go home to receive email as you do with post or be able to deal with the email as it arrives as you do with a telephone call.
Problems
Recipients	Less people have access to email than to other communication methods. This is espcecially true in poorer countries.
Packages	It is not possible to send packages by email.
Viruses	Recently many viruses have been spread through the Internet as attachments to emails. To prevent this happening files received as attachments should be virus checked before they are opened.
SPAM	Because email is very cheap many companies use it to send out adverts. Often these adverts are sent to people who have not asked for them and do not want them. They are known as SPAM. If you receive too much SPAM email (as many people do) it can be difficult and time consuming to find the emails that you want to or should read.
Information Overload	Many people now receive so many emails that it takes too much time to read through each of them and see which are really relevant to them. Because emailing is cheap and easy people send information by email that they would not have bothered to send by other communication methods. Having so much information that you can not effectively deal with it all is known as information overload.

GCSE ICT Companion 04 - (C) P Meakin 2004