Email vs Snail Mail

When the first instance of email or electronic mail came to be, it impacted the way people communicate with each other. If we wanted to reach out to someone who we couldn't communicate with through person to person contact; say they lived far way. One of the best ways to reach them would be to write them a letter and send it through the mail service. Then email created a way to instantly send a letter to someone without the need of the mail service, but what are the key similarities and differences between email and mail?

One of the key difference is affordability, In order to send a letter you would have to pay for it to be shipped to the person you wanted it to go to. For email, all you would need to pay for is internet and electricity, which is a common necessity for most people. Another difference is speed. For mail to be sent, it could take days! It has to physically travel the distance to your designated location. However, with email it seems like all you have to do is press a button and its delivered! But what exactly is the process of of getting an email sent? And how does it play into the similarities between mail and email?

When we think of mail being sent there are a couple of steps we have to go through. Namely, delivering our letter to the post office and having the post office send the letter to the address it is going to. Well surprising enough it is nearly the same process with email! Your letter that you typed on the computer gets sent to an email server, which is sort of like a virtual post office. From there it is sent to the address that you have specified. Now this isn't the same a home address, in fact it is much more specific, but that email address has one and only one online "mail box" that it is sent to. Even though email and mail seem like very different processes, the mechanics of it are very similar; and with technology growing, who know what we could be comparing email with in the future.