# "Consider the environment before printing this email" - why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 1, 2010, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576 "2010-12-01T19:25:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/21 "2010-12-02T01:44:36Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > It is easy to go green by giving other people trivial advice. In that case. I’m going green! Best wishes, hh ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/22 "2010-12-02T02:43:47Z")
I worked at a law firm and we printed out every e-mail we sent and got, but that was largely to cover our asses. The principle was, “If there’s no record of it, it didn’t happen.” ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/23 "2010-12-02T02:55:47Z")
Years ago we had trouble with users going over their quota for stored mail, so we encouraged them to save a hard copy of any important emails and delete their entire mailbox periodically. We don’t do that anymore, but it was necessary ~20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/24 "2010-12-02T03:15:16Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > The principle was, “If there’s no record of it, it didn’t happen.” So a printed copy of an e-mail was considered a valid record, whereas a stored copy wasn’t? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/25 "2010-12-02T03:29:34Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > So a printed copy of an e-mail was considered a valid record, whereas a stored copy wasn’t? Pretty much, especially because on the printed e-mail you had the time and date you printed it. Besides, if it was stored on the sender or recipient’s computer, you had to worry about the e-mail getitng deleted or something happening to the computer, or even just having a giant number of e-mails in your mail box. The other way, you print it out, give it to a secretary who puts it in the client’s correspondence folder, and you’re all set. ---
**Author:** ![Implicit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Implicit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Implicit)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/26 "2010-12-02T03:37:39Z")
I remember a Red Letter campaign back in the 80’s at a major oil company I worked for that was targeted at getting people to stop printing out every email they got. The norm was to keep a copy of every typed letter/memo in project files back then, so the same applied to correspondence by email and it took a couple of years for the company to get people to break that habit. I find it hard to believe anyone under the age of 50 prints out emails today. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/27 "2010-12-02T03:42:23Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Is there a general compulsion to print emails, a compulsion in some places, or was it a general practice at one time to print out every email and file it manually? Older people (60s-ish) I’ve worked with usually print an email and its attachments to read it, instead of reading it on the screen. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/28 "2010-12-02T04:10:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > My advisor doesn’t even read computer code on a computer. Her method of editing code is to have a grad student print it out for her, she marks up the printout with red pen, and gives it back to the grad student to do the editing on the computer. OK. You win the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/29 "2010-12-02T06:17:08Z")
> [@Kalypso](#): > > In my experience, the printer outers are the older people that don’t like computers as much, and don’t ever use them for fun. There can be valid reasons for printing emails. A few years ago, I had a boss (in his 40’s) who printed out most of his email unread. Then he took the stack of paper with him, to read in between (or even during) the many meetings he was required to attend. Most of the printouts he threw away. a few he made notes on and then responded when he was back at his office. Nowadays he would have a laptop, and could take that with him. But it’s harder to be discrete when typing on a laptop in a meeting, as compared to reading & making notes on paper. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/30 "2010-12-02T09:00:20Z")
Several of my co-workers are older (late 50s and 60s). They printed out every email for a while. We’ve mostly broken them of this habit, but for many years they would print out every e-mail they sent or received. For what purpose, God only knows. One would even print everything out in triplicate - one to read, one to file, one to store on his desk. I suspect it probably goes back to when office-wide memos were in use. I wasn’t in the workforce at this time, but I suspect back in the day memos tended to carry a bit more weight than an email does today. As in, somebody took the trouble to write this, print it, copy it and distribute it. So it must have some value. Maybe it made sense to keep the memos (physical copies back then). And then they transferred that thought process to email. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/31 "2010-12-02T09:37:29Z")
> [@](#): > > I’d much rather get an instant message in these cases than an e-mail message. I’m bored with e-mail. Done. Through. Get it out of here. I used to do a lot of chat and IM, before real email. I no longer do chat, and I don’t do IM, either. IMs have their place, but generally I’m not even signed in to an IM program. > [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > My parents are in their 70’s. While they have learned to use computers, I’m not sure that they trust that the info will still be there at a later date. Articles of interest, maps of places they might go to, recipes, emails… All of it gets printed. > > That, and worsening eye sight makes reading things on a computer harder. I wish that I’d printed the information on quite a few webpages, such as recipes. Remember GeoCities? I do. Some people had some pretty interesting craft instructions on those pages. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/32 "2010-12-02T12:30:54Z")
There’s people in my office that print out a lot of stuff. I’m the 2nd youngest in the IT group (and I’m 33!) and most people are in their 40’s and 50’s. There’s one infamous lady that was told way back during the Holocene age that as a regulated company we have to print off every document for filing. No one can convince her she can otherwise now. The paper filing system is years gone, but she still prints and files them all over her desk. Anyways, we’d get emails from our IT contractors in India with the thread title as their email signature, and she’d print those off to give to the next shift. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/33 "2010-12-02T13:48:33Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I used never to print e-mails, but as time as gone on, my e-mail inboxes have gotten more and more cluttered with trivia, nonsense, advertising, and spam, spam, spam. My inbox no longer has any meaning for me. I’ve even stopped looking at it more than two or three times a day. Some of my accounts are lucky to get a once-a-week perusal. Thus I tend to print out e-mail messages that require me to take action of some kind. > > Frankly, with all the different kinds of online communication we have these days, I feel like e-mail has run its course. It’s gotten to the point where I get annoyed if someone inside the building sends me an e-mail that needs to be acted on urgently instead of calling me or just walking down to my desk. It’s even more infuriating if it’s a person whose desk is within 10 feet of mine (this happens to be my supervisor and a habitual “consider the environment” tagger). > > I’d much rather get an instant message in these cases than an e-mail message. I’m bored with e-mail. Done. Through. Get it out of here. Dude, Hotmail is so internet-stoneage… Get Gmail. ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_Cello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@Clark\_Cello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_Cello)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/34 "2010-12-02T14:18:37Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I used never to print e-mails, but as time as gone on, my e-mail inboxes have gotten more and more cluttered with trivia, nonsense, advertising, and spam, spam, spam. My inbox no longer has any meaning for me. I’ve even stopped looking at it more than two or three times a day. Some of my accounts are lucky to get a once-a-week perusal. Thus I tend to print out e-mail messages that require me to take action of some kind. > > Frankly, with all the different kinds of online communication we have these days, I feel like e-mail has run its course. It’s gotten to the point where I get annoyed if someone inside the building sends me an e-mail that needs to be acted on urgently instead of calling me or just walking down to my desk. It’s even more infuriating if it’s a person whose desk is within 10 feet of mine (this happens to be my supervisor and a habitual “consider the environment” tagger). > > I’d much rather get an instant message in these cases than an e-mail message. I’m bored with e-mail. Done. Through. Get it out of here. That’s interesting. I use 3 email addresses that I regularly use, and never have to deal with Spam. I probably see some Spam once a month or so. I had thought that technology had mainly solved the Spam problem, but maybe I was wrong. We do a lot of IMing at my company, but anything official is sent via e-mail, since e-mails are all stored and archived, while IM conversations aren’t (at least by policy). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/35 "2010-12-02T15:18:47Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > Dude, Hotmail is so internet-stoneage… Get Gmail. 1. I have Gmail, but besides the privacy concerns that Google implicates, my employer has its own e-mail system. I don’t mix e-mail uses. That’s why I maintain several e-mail accounts. 2. To me, “spam” isn’t just unsolicited commercial messages or scams. It’s also the numerous lists I have been added to over time for a variety of reasons – I once bought something online, I paid a bill online, I signed up on some service (like SDMB), I made some casual contact who added me to some list, etc. Furthermore, as a consequence of my job, I am on multiple public relations/news/promotional lists, some of them which are still relevant to me some of which aren’t. It’s way too much trouble to unsubscribe from lists, so I just go through and delete dozens of unread messages every day or two. 3. Messages that I have been copied on for no good reason are also “spam” to me. 4. After more than 15 years of using e-mail, it has just become a low-priority form of communication to me, to a large extent because there’s so much of it about and so much of it is irrelevant. If you’re sending me e-mail, that’s an indication that it’s not something that needs immediate attention. If it were, you’d use a higher priority method, such as a telephone call or an instant message or face-to-face communication. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/36 "2010-12-02T15:20:27Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > Dude, Hotmail is so internet-stoneage… Get Gmail. Pfft. Hello there, last year! All the cool kids are sending messages through Facebook now. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/37 "2010-12-02T18:16:52Z")
My employer insists that anything relevant MUST be printed out and saved with the physical file for the specific job. The valid reason is that we get correspondence and information from a slew of different sources and one never knows which item may become important later. The file for one job will be handled by several different people and it is actually easier to pass around a physical file for each than to have to rely on the incredibly complex database that would be required in order to store everything. I am actually the oldest in the office, and resisted the printing of everything, but have to admit that in our situation it works. Just recently we had a question come up over a difference of about $900 on one job, and the electronic communication could not be found. Someone went and dug up the file from the offsite storage, and the relevant printed material found therein solved the issue. I am absolutely positive that it would be possible to design a database to store everything related to each job electronically. However, it would require constant updating, plus scanning and saving of documents, and for our small operation would need more time and money input than would be appropriate. We once started trying to compile a database of our vendors’ rates, and even that portion became too daunting. It would have required a ton of data entry. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/38 "2010-12-02T20:05:55Z")
Quoth **acsenray** : > [@](#): > > 1. To me, “spam” isn’t just unsolicited commercial messages or scams. It’s also the numerous lists I have been added to over time for a variety of reasons – I once bought something online, I paid a bill online, I signed up on some service (like SDMB), I made some casual contact who added me to some list, etc. Furthermore, as a consequence of my job, I am on multiple public relations/news/promotional lists, some of them which are still relevant to me some of which aren’t. It’s way too much trouble to unsubscribe from lists, so I just go through and delete dozens of unread messages every day or two. > > 2. Messages that I have been copied on for no good reason are also “spam” to me. > > 3. After more than 15 years of using e-mail, it has just become a low-priority form of communication to me, to a large extent because there’s so much of it about and so much of it is irrelevant. If you’re sending me e-mail, that’s an indication that it’s not something that needs immediate attention. If it were, you’d use a higher priority method, such as a telephone call or an instant message or face-to-face communication. And if people started using IMs extensively instead of e-mails, then you’d get spam there, instead. I mean, really, if you’re including as spam messages that you’ve signed up to receive, then you’re going to be spammed by any method of communication you ever use. Quoth **MLS** : > [@](#): > > My employer insists that anything relevant MUST be printed out and saved with the physical file for the specific job. The valid reason is that we get correspondence and information from a slew of different sources and one never knows which item may become important later. The file for one job will be handled by several different people and it is actually easier to pass around a physical file for each than to have to rely on the incredibly complex database that would be required in order to store everything. I am actually the oldest in the office, and resisted the printing of everything, but have to admit that in our situation it works. > > Just recently we had a question come up over a difference of about $900 on one job, and the electronic communication could not be found. Someone went and dug up the file from the offsite storage, and the relevant printed material found therein solved the issue. Now, see, this is an object lesson of why people should be saving everything electronically _instead_ of using hardcopies. Going to the offsite storage and digging up a lost file is a Hell of a lot easier if it’s electronic than if it’s stacks of papers. And the different regarding complicated databases isn’t that you have to have complicated databases if you’re using electronic files: You don’t. You can pass around electronic documents that everyone does their thing with just as easily as you can for paper copies. The difference is that, with paper copies, you _can’t_ do the complicated databases, even when you’d really like to and it would make your job a lot easier. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/39 "2010-12-02T20:16:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And if people started using IMs extensively instead of e-mails, then you’d get spam there, instead. I mean, really, if you’re including as spam messages that you’ve signed up to receive, then you’re going to be spammed by any method of communication you ever use. I have never signed up for a list that allows contact by telephone or instant message. Furthermore, a business can set up a private instant messaging network. Most E-mail software already allows it; it just needs to be activated. And what do you mean “if” people started using IMs extensively? They already do. The difference is that IMs and telephone contacts are, unlike E-mail, a kind of communication that are not characterized by large volume use. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576/40 "2010-12-02T20:40:15Z")
> [@](#): > > I have never signed up for a list that allows contact by telephone or instant message Yes, because nobody ever does any business by IM. If they did, as you’d like, then that would change. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consider-the-environment-before-printing-this-email-why/562576.md?page=3)