The same can be said of phone trees where you have to press all manner of buttons to get to the area you want, then wait a long time for an answer. What happens if what you want is not covered in the possible selections? It happens. Ever tried to find a switchboard number for some government agencies? Some are easy to find others involve long term investigation and the skills of an investigative reporter.

Email has made corresponding quick and easy and economic rationalisation means often there are not enough staff to keep up with the amount of work emails often entail. In a previous job I was asked by someone why they had not got a response to their email sent over one month ago. I had to explain we had not even read it yet as there were more than 2,000 pieces of correspondence ahead of his email waiting to be actioned.

It is not good enough but that is the reality of it. Once upon a time it was considered ill-mannered not to respond to correspondence within a reasonable time. Email has made the problem worse as it is a lot easier to whip out a quick email even if it just to say you think someone is a D*head whereas the effort to put pen to paper means many will not bother.

Email makes it more difficult to claim your letter was lost in the mail.