Enough With The Spam

It used to be that email was cool. You would check to see who wrote you and what was new. You might get three or four per day. It was exciting. Now I check my email every day, not out of anticipation, but in order to keep them from piling up. There are hundreds of messages in there. I get department store ads, statements for bills, the same coupons you were sent yesterday, ads for one day sales every day, food ads, grocery ads, school newsletters, entertainment news and the list just keeps going. 99% of it is pure garbage. I spend at least twenty minutes clicking on an email and waiting for it to no longer show as new before I hit delete. You would think the junk mail folder would help but you need to go through that to or else it will continue to show new emails there. And every so often there is something important that ended up there. Everyone seems to have my email address. I don’t know if companies sell it (which they always claim that they don’t do) or somehow I signed up for all of this. Some of it is easy to track by origin. Others come out of the blue like notices about upcoming sporting events or concerts. I never expressed interest in this team or music group. Why do I have to sift through emails about them? Each day I probably keep 3-4 messages that are pertinent. The rest go in the imaginary recycling bin. I have tried to “unsubscribe” from these different places but they make it nearly impossible to do so. You have to know your password and follow all these links. If you actually manage to do it they ask you to fill out a survey as to why you unsubscribed. (That could be a whole blog by itself) It’s as though they are shocked that I no longer want to be peppered with their spam. In the end, your inbox still has as many messages as ever. And it isn’t like the trend is diminishing. It’s just the opposite. Everyone is “going green” and “going paperless” with their bills. Some companies reward you with an extra discount if you go paperless. Others like my bank take the opposite approach. If you actually want them to sacrifice a poor tree in order to make your precious statement, they charge you. So you have to go paperless or else pay for something you won’t look twice at before filing or discarding. Maybe emails SHOULD cost money? Then we wouldn’t be inundated with cyber-bombardments. I have asked friends what they do and they all tell me to change my email address. That’s like moving so you won’t get as much junk mail. It just isn’t practical. Think of how many people you would have to notify of the change. Besides, changing email addresses just makes me feel like the spammers won. Perhaps I’m stubborn but I will not give them the satisfaction. So I continue my daily routine of opening and deleting. There has to be a better way.