TOEFL iBT Independent Writing, E-mail has made communication between people less personal. - rewrite -

Writing Topic

Consider the following statement. E-mail has made communication between people less personal. Do you agree with this idea? Support your response by including specific reasons and examples.

☆Let’s Think

1.      Imagine a movie scene in which a bounty-hunter is driving his car. He is on his way to kill someone and goes, "This time, it's personal."

Which of the following do you think is a possible reason for the action?

a. He wants to kill the person for money.

b. He wants to kill the person to restore the honor of his late comrade.

2.      Which of the following is personal information?

a.    someone’s snail mail address

b.    a McDonal’s location

3.      Do you ever feel that the communication is less personal when you send an email message to someone? If so, in what situation do you have the experience?

4.      Do you ever use email or Line message to do the following?

contacting your family and friends

exchanging ideas with your family and friends

sending a message to an old friend

inviting someone to your home party

sending a New Year’s card

giving a thank you note to your family

Notes

E-mail has become so popular that when you say mail you mean e-mail now. Before e-mail came into popular use, mailing meant sending letters or post cards. Obviously, these means of communication are generally more bothersome, time-consuming, and costly than e-mail. It was easier, faster, and cheaper to communicate in person than by mail before, and of course it was usually more personal.

Now it seems that e-mail has taken place of much part of direct communication. In business, for example, much of it is conducted through, very often only through, e-mailing. Personal communication seems to have been affected by this technological change, too. In addition, even letters, cards or memos have much more personal touch than emails or text-messages when they are hand-written. Some think opportunities of personal communication have reduced because of the frequent use of e-mail. Others think that people are enjoying their personal communication more than ever by e-mailing and text messaging.

☆An Essay for Ideas and Expressions

A villain in an old suspense movie―I think it was Snake Eyes―says, before shooting a character who had tried to personally warn the US President of a danger, "How naive you were, trying to contact the President by e-mail!” Even deleting the extreme case of hacking as in the case of this movie scene, there is an impression that Information Technology has deprived us of the personal area in our communication. However, I cannot totally agree with the statement that e-mail has made communication between people less personal. In some cases, e-mail seems to make personal communication more possible than before. When people talk about communication and the new technology, the discussions seem to be made from mainly three perspectives: opportunities for intimate communication, the contents, and openness of the Internet. They lead me to different conclusions. Yet it also seems to come down to the view that whether communication between individuals is personal or not seems to be affected not so much by IT history as by personal history.

古いサスペンス映画（スネーク･アイズだったと思う）の悪者が米国大統領に危険を個人的に警告しようとした登場人物を撃つ前に「大統領にＥメールで連絡しようとするなんてひどい世間知らずだったね。」と言う。この映画の場面の様なハッキングという極端な場合を除いても、ITはコミュニケーションにおける個人的な領域を私たちから奪ったという印象がある。しかしＥメールが人々の間のコミュニケーションをあまり個人的でなくしてしまったという発言に完全には賛成できない。場合によってはＥメールは個人的なコミュニケーションを以前より可能にするように思える。コミュニケーションと新しい技術について語る時、議論は主に親密なコミュニケーションの機会、内容、インターネットの開放性の三つの観点からなされるようだ。これらは異なる結論に至らせる。しかしまた個人のコミュニケーションが個人的かどうかはＩＴの歴史よりも個人史に影響されるようにも思える。

In the case of intimate communication, the total time we spend on it seems to have reduced owing to the development of e-mail functions. What used to be done in person or on the phone or by letter before is now done by email. Mother-and-child exchanges are often done by mail. Business is done only through exchanges of e-mail more often than before. It is not uncommon that employees in the same company who have never met or talked with each other have been working on a project together through e-mailing for years. In this circumstance, interaction between workers on personal level will be extremely reduced. As emailing is faster, both good news and bad new are reported before meeting in person. Some moment of life are not directly shared now. A “Going-home call” is now a “going-home mail”. Reading the message of your beloved is less personal than hearing the voice. If the contents are the same, an old online message is less precious as a keepsake than an old hand-written memo, whose paper the writer touched and whose ink is fixed on the paper in the person’s writing style. At the same time, it is also a fact that emails contribute to intimate communication. They help people communicate with their family and friends even when they are away from each other. You can also receive or send personal messages even while you are at work or in class. This was impossible before the service was invented.

親密なコミュニケーションの場合、Ｅメール機能の発達により費やす時間の総量は減少したように思える。以前対面か電話または手紙で行われていたことが今はＥメールでなされている。母子のやりとりがよくメールで行われる。ビジネスは以前よりもメールのやり取りだけで行われている。一度もあったことのない同じ会社の従業員が何年もメールだけで一緒にある計画に取り組んでいることは珍しくない。この状況では労働者間の個人レベルでの交流は極端に減少する。良い知らせも悪い知らせもメールの方が速いので直接会う前に報告する。人生のある瞬間が今では直接共有されないのだ。「帰るコール」は今では「帰るメール」だ。大切な人のメッセージを読むのは声を聴くのと比べるとあまり個人的ではない。内容が同じなら古いオンラインメッセージは書き手が触った紙とその人の字体でインクが定着された古い手書きの連絡メモほど形見として貴重ではない。同時にＥメールは親密なコミュニケーションに貢献しているのも事実だ。遠く離れている時でさえ家族や友人とコミュニケーションをとるのをＥメールが助けている。仕事中や授業中でさえ個人的なメッセージを送受信できる。メールサービスが発明される前はこれは不可能だった。

In terms of message contents, they seem to have become more personal than before the advent of e-mail. Since it is more casual than a letter, an e-mail can be written in very rough or intimate ways. Also, it can be written and sent more readily than a letter. Again, if you include the evolved forms of e-mail like chat rooms and Twitter, no one is excluded in learning someone else's、often a perfect stranger's, personal matter. People upload their personal opinions, personal pictures, and many other kinds of personal information, which are exposed to the eyes of people all over the world. Even in my personal experience, I have encountered many more personal messages of the people I have never met over the past ten years than I had done in the previous decades clearly because of the introduction of e-mailing services and the same kind of services.

メッセージの内容という点においてＥメールの出現以前と比べてより個人的になったように思える。手紙よりもくだけているのでメールは非常に雑または親密なやり方で書くことができる。また、手紙よりも気軽に書いたり送ったりできる。また、チャット・ルームやツイッターのようなＥメールの進化形態を含むなら、世界中の人々の目にさらされている他人の、しばしば完全に見知らぬ人の個人的な問題を知るのを誰も阻害されない。私個人の経験においてさえ、Ｅメールサービスと同様のサービスの導入により、一度もあった人のない人たちの個人的なメッセージに過去十年間それ以前の数十年間よりもずっと多く遭遇した。

When it comes to the openness of the Internet, technically there is no personal realm. The information on it has been meant to be shared by all on the net since it was developed using the public money. Although e-mail is encrypted and, without hacking, its messages stay between individuals, carbon copy (cc) or blind carbon copy (bcc) functions allow the sender to share the message with many people other than the recipient. Also, a moment of lapse can make you unwittingly expose your personal messages to the eyes of countless people. Almost every month, we see an article about a public figure hitting a wrong key and sending a message with an inappropriate expression or picture to everyone on the mailing list before profusely apologizing to the public and/or being forced to retire early. If this discussion can include the services related to e-mail function such as online message-board or SNS, the exposure will be almost limitless. It is well-known that personnel managers routinely refer to Twitter and Facebook for the information of job candidates and employees. Moreover, it is now an open-secret that the intelligence agencies of some developed countries read ordinary people’s emails. When you really want to be personal, you have to avoid IT.

インターネットの開放性ということになると実質的に個人的な領域はない。公費で開発された時からネット上の情報は皆に共有されることになっている。Ｅメールは暗号化されておりハッキングかなければメッセージは個人間で保たれるが、写し機能や隠しの写し機能で送り手が受け手以外の多くの人とメッセージを共有することが可能だ。また、一瞬の過失によりうっかり個人的なメッツセージを無数の人々の目にさらすことがあり得る。間違ったキーを打って不適切な表現か写真付きのメッセージをメールリストに載っている人全員に送ってしまい世間にさんざん謝罪するか無理やり辞任させられるかその両方になる公人についての記事をほとんど毎月目にする。もしこの議論がオンライン掲示板あるいはＳＮＳの様なＥメール機能関連のサービスも含めることができるなら、露出はほとんど限界がない。人事部長が就職希望者や従業員の情報を求めて日常的にツイッターやフェイスブックを参照しているのはよく知られている。その上今ではいくつかの先進国の情報局が一般人のメールを読んでいることは公然の秘密だ。本当に個人的にしたければＩＴは避けなくてはならない。

Now, this might be a rather personal view, but communication between people may not be influenced very much by changes of means of communication. I feel that communication is always personal, on the individual level. As far as I know, when I feel that I am really communicating with someone, in other words, having an interaction open-heartedly,  I am interacting with one person whether in person or through some kind of medium. When I interact with more than one person, the interaction becomes not communication but something theatrical or political. I feel that I am playing a role, willingly or unwillingly, wearing a persona provided by the circumstance I am in. Sometimes, people never hear me whatever I say or only hear me saying what they want to hear from me. Also, people act or talk differently when they are alone with me from the way they behave when they are in a group, and it is in the former that they seem to be really frank and honest. I suppose most people have more or less of the same kind of experience. Personal communication can or cannot be done with or without email.

さて、これはどちらかというと個人的見解かもしれないが人々のコミュニケーションはコミュニケーション手段によってあまり影響を受けないかもしれない。個人レベルではコミュニケーションは常に個人的だと感じている。知る限りでは誰かと真にコミュニケーションをとっていると感じる時、言い換えれば心を開いて交流していると感じる時、対面であろうが何らかのメディアを通してであろうが一人の人と交流している。一人以上の人と交流する時、交流はコミュニケーションではなく何か劇場的または政治的なものになる。好むと好まざるとにかかわらず、自分のいる状況に規定された人格を身に着けてある役を果たしているように感じる。また、人は私と二人きりの時は集団内の行動とは異なった振る舞いや話しかたをする。そして人が本当に率直で誠実に思えるのは前者なのだ。大抵の人が多かれ少なかれ同様の経験があると思う。Ｅメールがあろうがなかろうが個人的なコミュニケーションはすることもしないこともできるのだ。

The above-mentioned impression of mine about personal communication might actually not be too personal or unfounded. One professor who studies phenomena happening on the Internet says, after an overview of an experiment in which students are assigned to talk in front of the webcam in their bedrooms and send the video message to YouTube every day, that, although people are talking about personal matters and showing their very personal sides, they are kind of playing a role in the virtual world, wearing a mask which is very intimate but still made up to be shown to the public. If this applies to all the personal messages and posts on the web, strictly speaking, they are not really personal. Humans are social animals, and thus must be keenly aware, consciously or unconsciously, of the social side of the Internet. Furthermore, no one, including the sender of a message, can actually tell whether the person is really making a confession or not, since our minds are very complex. Therefore, the contents that seem to be personal might not be really personal.

個人的なコミュニケーションに関する上記の私の印象は実は個人的過ぎもしないし根拠がなくもないかもしれない。インターネットで起こっている現象を研究しているある教授が、学生が毎日自室でウェブカメラの前で話をしてユーチューブにビデオメッセージを送る課題をする実験を見直した後、人々は個人的な事について話しており非常に個人的な面を見せてはいるが、非常に親密だが依然として一般に見せるために作られた仮面を着けて電脳世界におけるある役をある種果たしていると言っている。これがウェブ上の全ての個人的なメッセージと投稿に当てはまるのなら厳密に言ってそれらは本当に個人的ではないのだ。人間は社会的な動物であり従って意識的無意識的にインターネットの社会的な面を強く意識しているに違いない。その上さらに私たちの精神はとても複雑なのでメッセージの送り手を含め誰もその人が本当に告白しているのかどうか実は分からない。従って個人的に思える内容は実は個人的でないかもしれない。

It is difficult to conclude with certainty that e-mail has made communication between people less personal because it is difficult to discern what is going on in today’s communication. People interact in many kinds of ways and e-mail is only a means of communication, which might not be so powerful as to make fundamental changes in our communication, while we all feel things are not really the same as before e-mail was created. In any case, I would never try to contact the US President via e-mail if I had to personally warn him.

現在のコミュニケーションにおいて何が起こっているのか見極めるのが難しいので、Ｅメールが人々のコミュニケーションをあまり個人的でなくしたと確信をもって結論するのは難しい。人々は様々なやり方で交流しＥメールはコミュニケーション手段のひとつでしかない。一方Ｅメールが生み出される以前と比べて物事は全く同じではないと皆が感じている。いずれにせよ自分が米国大統領に個人的に警告しなければならないとしたらＥメール経由で連絡を取ろうとは決してしないだろう。

☆Sample Essay Structure

【Introduction】I cannot totally agree with the statement that e-mail has made communication between people less personal because whether communication between individuals is personal or not seems to be affected not so much by IT history as by personal history.

【Point 1】In the case of intimate communication, the total time we spend on it seems to have reduced owing to the development of e-mail functions. At the same time, it is also often said that e-mails help people communicate with their family and friends even when they are away from each other.

【Point 2】In terms of message contents, they seem to have become more personal than before on the surface, but they might not be really personal.

【Point 3】The Internet is technically open to everyone. When you really want to be personal, you have to avoid IT.

【Point 4】Communication between people may not be influenced very much by changes of means of communication.

【Conclusion】People interact in many ways and e-mail is only a means of communication, which might not be so powerful as to make fundamental changes in our communication, while we all feel things are not really the same as before e-mail was created.

Your Sample Essay Structure

【Introduction = Outline】

【Point 1】

【Point 2】

【Point 3 / Counterargument-treatment】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】