July 28, 2025 • 9 mins
A look at how email has changed out lives and how bad it has become. The numbers will astound you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Welcome back to America TODAY, Jim Watkins.
I'm glad to be your host. And don't forget, you could
follow us online. The Spotify podcast is available
everywhere. Just look for America TODAY with
Jim Watkins and also Jim watkins.org.
I'm going to be putting up some new stuff.
They're kind of working on some new things, but the website is
up. You can always track what's
trending on my website as far aspodcasts, so forth.
(00:33):
This segment of the program is brought to you by Southwest
Florida dreamhome.com. If you're looking for a change
in life, maybe a real estate investment property, the folks
over at Miles Abbashon in Southwest Florida, centered in
Cape Coral can help you with allyour real estate needs.
And you can start with SouthwestFlorida dreamhome.com.
Take a look at some of the inventory that's out there right
(00:53):
now, really good prices and opportunities.
And again, it's a beautiful place to live.
The people here, we're just talking, a friend of mine had
dropped by yesterday and we werehanging out talking about the
perception of Florida for a lot of people that have never been.
And, and let me tell you, whatever people tell you, don't
believe them. It's one of the most laid back,
relaxed atmospheres of any state.
(01:14):
Nobody's tense here like they are in California, edgy and not
to say things about the folks upthere in San Louis.
And now they got a piece of heaven.
So everybody's kind of chill in the five cities, but and it's
just like that in Florida only, you know, 22 million of us are
having a Jimmy Buffett good timedown here.
So come join us Southwest Florida dreamhome.com.
(01:35):
I want to roll. This is amazing.
It's become a way of life to be sure we've got we've all gotten
used to having e-mail right. It's there you it's never going
to go away. What, when, when was the first
time you got e-mail? Probably with AOL, right?
They gave away those free disks that you would plop into your
(01:57):
computer and then it would add e-mail.
I mean, we're going back to the almost the very beginning of the
Internet, and you couldn't have e-mail without the Internet.
But they developed it and it hasn't changed.
I mean it's gotten more sophisticated in some ways
because they've integrated all these other interesting programs
into it, calendars and contacts and things like that, reminders,
(02:20):
but in essence, it's still the number one way of communicating
in the country. It was developed by a guy by the
name of Ray Tomlinson. He's the guy that made e-mail
possible. 1971 and he sent the first message between two
computers on ARPANET. ARPANET.
And he introduced the at symbol as a way to separate the user
(02:45):
from the host. So, for example, when you're,
you know, j.watkins@gmail.com, right?
So the AT is what makes it work.There's some controversy,
though. Shiva Aradurai, an American
computer scientist, claims to have developed a system called
e-mail in 1978 while working at the University of Medicine and
(03:08):
Dentistry of New Jersey. His system replicated features
of interoffice paper mail. That's where we get the inbox
and the outbox and the folders and things like that.
And critics say that it was a stand alone system, not Internet
net based like Tomlinson. So we could have Internet or
(03:29):
according to this gentleman, we could have e-mail.
You don't need Internet. Interesting.
But the ray is widely recognized.
Now. Here's where it gets kind of
interesting. So it became public in 1993 with
the rise of the mainstream Internet use.
Remember we would all get there would be 1 computer in the
building that had Internet because that back then it was on
(03:54):
dial up. You had to have a modem or you
had to have a computer that had a phone cable.
What they call an RJ5, I think an RJ36 or something.
Anyway, not to get all technicalabout it, but the stats on it
are incredible. Globally, there are 347 billion
emails every day being sent, according to the report in 2023
(04:22):
by an organization called Yangana. 376 billion emails by
2025. In the United States alone,
there are up to between 9.7 and 10 billion emails per day,
making it the single largest e-mail sending country.
(04:46):
Now this is where it gets interesting.
I asked my wife, how many emailsdo you think you get every day?
The average person gets 117 emails every single day.
The average office or professional worker receives
between 117 and 121 emails per day.
(05:06):
A typical office worker will send about 20 messages per day.
Now, I know a lot of folks, theydon't do the e-mail anymore
because they can't keep track. It's just like the inbox keeps
getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it drives you crazy.
And then you feel bad because maybe you heard from an old
friend, but you've got a stack of e-mail and, and half of it is
(05:28):
just stuff. You never even.
Have you ever tried to unsubscribe?
I, I, I used to do that once a month, I would go through and
just unsubscribe. Anybody that I didn't sign up
for or that I did sign up for and I changed my mind.
Doesn't work. They still keep coming.
I think I've got, what's my inbox right now.
How many emails did I get in today?
If I look at it, it's, it's justhorrible.
(05:50):
It's like it never ends. I have 117 emails and the day's
just getting started. So they were right spot on.
It became public in 1971, the first network e-mail again sent
by Ray Tomlinson. 1980s e-mail systems were mainly used with
academia, government and corporate networks.
(06:11):
Early in 1990, the spread of theWorld Wide Web and commercial IS
PS Like AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe, e-mail began to
reach the general public and therest, as they say, is history.
Now the question is, has it madeit better for us?
That's the real question becauseI think it, as with any
technology, what ends up happening is you, you know, it
(06:34):
just gets exploited. People use it as, and I'll be
the first one to admit I use it quite a bit, but I'm also very
respectful. I will never, ever e-mail
somebody unless they know that it's coming from me and they're
OK with it. The days of sending out blind
emails to people, it's not, not here.
(06:55):
And I don't know, you know, maybe if to me, the corporate
world could back off a little bit.
I mean, too much of anything is,is just too much and you can't
keep up. And it, it, it, it ends up
defeating its own purpose of being an effective communicator.
But I think somebody has to comeup with a way of modifying
e-mail. Maybe there is a way to do it.
If, you know, send me an e-mail.Oh wait, don't do that because
(07:18):
I'll get 300 emails. But is there a way to prioritize
between what's good e-mail and what isn't?
Like, could you pick certain people that you don't mind
seeing and they get stacked up front depending on what time the
e-mail comes in? Something to make it more user
friendly, I think, because it's just overwhelming and I'm sure
(07:38):
they'll come up with new tools like that.
So I want to get this off my chest.
I know there's a lot of stuff talking about Epstein.
And now the latest I saw Devin Nunez, who who runs Truth Social
over there with Trump. Apparently the big breaking news
story today is remember the Mar a Lago FBI raid?
That was one where they went in and they took a bunch of
(07:59):
pictures and they made Trump wasn't there and they went
through all of Melania's underwear and remember all that?
That was all supposed to be about documents.
Well, according to Devin Nunez, and some of the things that
they're filing from the Tulsi Gabbard DNI data dump is that
they were actually, what was thestory they were actually looking
for. They were looking for
(08:20):
information for was it Devin? It was false pretenses.
In other words, it wasn't reallythe reason why the FBI went in
to investigate. They weren't looking for
documents. They were looking for
information on election strategy.
And this to me is is no different from Watergate.
They were the the Obama administration used the FBI and
(08:42):
weaponized them against an American system, American
businessman and a billionaire toboot, to undermine his campaign
and to completely destroy his credibility after he and of
course, this was the lead up to the 2020.
So think of all the things now that we're going to find out
that just weren't true, that we're just a weaponized Justice
(09:04):
Department going after a political opponent.
And that was Jeff Turley's pointin his article this weekend.
Jeff Turley is Washington University law professor, and
he's often right on the mark. Even Stephen A Smith, ESPN
sports announcer, said what makes this different from
everything else? Because politicians have been
(09:24):
doing this for a long, long time.
What makes this different is that they use law enforcement to
go against a political enemy andthat's just not the way it's
done in America. That is obstruction.
That is counter democracy. So the saga continues.
Jim Watkins, see you next time on America TODAY.
Welcome back to America TODAY, Jim Watkins.
I'm glad to be your host. And don't forget, you could
follow us online. The Spotify podcast is available
everywhere. Just look for America TODAY with
Jim Watkins and also Jim watkins.org.
I'm going to be putting up some new stuff.
They're kind of working on some new things, but the website is
up. You can always track what's
trending on my website as far aspodcasts, so forth.
(00:33):
This segment of the program is brought to you by Southwest
Florida dreamhome.com. If you're looking for a change
in life, maybe a real estate investment property, the folks
over at Miles Abbashon in Southwest Florida, centered in
Cape Coral can help you with allyour real estate needs.
And you can start with SouthwestFlorida dreamhome.com.
Take a look at some of the inventory that's out there right
(00:53):
now, really good prices and opportunities.
And again, it's a beautiful place to live.
The people here, we're just talking, a friend of mine had
dropped by yesterday and we werehanging out talking about the
perception of Florida for a lot of people that have never been.
And, and let me tell you, whatever people tell you, don't
believe them. It's one of the most laid back,
relaxed atmospheres of any state.
(01:14):
Nobody's tense here like they are in California, edgy and not
to say things about the folks upthere in San Louis.
And now they got a piece of heaven.
So everybody's kind of chill in the five cities, but and it's
just like that in Florida only, you know, 22 million of us are
having a Jimmy Buffett good timedown here.
So come join us Southwest Florida dreamhome.com.
(01:35):
I want to roll. This is amazing.
It's become a way of life to be sure we've got we've all gotten
used to having e-mail right. It's there you it's never going
to go away. What, when, when was the first
time you got e-mail? Probably with AOL, right?
They gave away those free disks that you would plop into your
(01:57):
computer and then it would add e-mail.
I mean, we're going back to the almost the very beginning of the
Internet, and you couldn't have e-mail without the Internet.
But they developed it and it hasn't changed.
I mean it's gotten more sophisticated in some ways
because they've integrated all these other interesting programs
into it, calendars and contacts and things like that, reminders,
(02:20):
but in essence, it's still the number one way of communicating
in the country. It was developed by a guy by the
name of Ray Tomlinson. He's the guy that made e-mail
possible. 1971 and he sent the first message between two
computers on ARPANET. ARPANET.
And he introduced the at symbol as a way to separate the user
(02:45):
from the host. So, for example, when you're,
you know, j.watkins@gmail.com, right?
So the AT is what makes it work.There's some controversy,
though. Shiva Aradurai, an American
computer scientist, claims to have developed a system called
e-mail in 1978 while working at the University of Medicine and
(03:08):
Dentistry of New Jersey. His system replicated features
of interoffice paper mail. That's where we get the inbox
and the outbox and the folders and things like that.
And critics say that it was a stand alone system, not Internet
net based like Tomlinson. So we could have Internet or
(03:29):
according to this gentleman, we could have e-mail.
You don't need Internet. Interesting.
But the ray is widely recognized.
Now. Here's where it gets kind of
interesting. So it became public in 1993 with
the rise of the mainstream Internet use.
Remember we would all get there would be 1 computer in the
building that had Internet because that back then it was on
(03:54):
dial up. You had to have a modem or you
had to have a computer that had a phone cable.
What they call an RJ5, I think an RJ36 or something.
Anyway, not to get all technicalabout it, but the stats on it
are incredible. Globally, there are 347 billion
emails every day being sent, according to the report in 2023
(04:22):
by an organization called Yangana. 376 billion emails by
2025. In the United States alone,
there are up to between 9.7 and 10 billion emails per day,
making it the single largest e-mail sending country.
(04:46):
Now this is where it gets interesting.
I asked my wife, how many emailsdo you think you get every day?
The average person gets 117 emails every single day.
The average office or professional worker receives
between 117 and 121 emails per day.
(05:06):
A typical office worker will send about 20 messages per day.
Now, I know a lot of folks, theydon't do the e-mail anymore
because they can't keep track. It's just like the inbox keeps
getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it drives you crazy.
And then you feel bad because maybe you heard from an old
friend, but you've got a stack of e-mail and, and half of it is
(05:28):
just stuff. You never even.
Have you ever tried to unsubscribe?
I, I, I used to do that once a month, I would go through and
just unsubscribe. Anybody that I didn't sign up
for or that I did sign up for and I changed my mind.
Doesn't work. They still keep coming.
I think I've got, what's my inbox right now.
How many emails did I get in today?
If I look at it, it's, it's justhorrible.
(05:50):
It's like it never ends. I have 117 emails and the day's
just getting started. So they were right spot on.
It became public in 1971, the first network e-mail again sent
by Ray Tomlinson. 1980s e-mail systems were mainly used with
academia, government and corporate networks.
(06:11):
Early in 1990, the spread of theWorld Wide Web and commercial IS
PS Like AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe, e-mail began to
reach the general public and therest, as they say, is history.
Now the question is, has it madeit better for us?
That's the real question becauseI think it, as with any
technology, what ends up happening is you, you know, it
(06:34):
just gets exploited. People use it as, and I'll be
the first one to admit I use it quite a bit, but I'm also very
respectful. I will never, ever e-mail
somebody unless they know that it's coming from me and they're
OK with it. The days of sending out blind
emails to people, it's not, not here.
(06:55):
And I don't know, you know, maybe if to me, the corporate
world could back off a little bit.
I mean, too much of anything is,is just too much and you can't
keep up. And it, it, it, it ends up
defeating its own purpose of being an effective communicator.
But I think somebody has to comeup with a way of modifying
e-mail. Maybe there is a way to do it.
If, you know, send me an e-mail.Oh wait, don't do that because
(07:18):
I'll get 300 emails. But is there a way to prioritize
between what's good e-mail and what isn't?
Like, could you pick certain people that you don't mind
seeing and they get stacked up front depending on what time the
e-mail comes in? Something to make it more user
friendly, I think, because it's just overwhelming and I'm sure
(07:38):
they'll come up with new tools like that.
So I want to get this off my chest.
I know there's a lot of stuff talking about Epstein.
And now the latest I saw Devin Nunez, who who runs Truth Social
over there with Trump. Apparently the big breaking news
story today is remember the Mar a Lago FBI raid?
That was one where they went in and they took a bunch of
(07:59):
pictures and they made Trump wasn't there and they went
through all of Melania's underwear and remember all that?
That was all supposed to be about documents.
Well, according to Devin Nunez, and some of the things that
they're filing from the Tulsi Gabbard DNI data dump is that
they were actually, what was thestory they were actually looking
for. They were looking for
(08:20):
information for was it Devin? It was false pretenses.
In other words, it wasn't reallythe reason why the FBI went in
to investigate. They weren't looking for
documents. They were looking for
information on election strategy.
And this to me is is no different from Watergate.
They were the the Obama administration used the FBI and
(08:42):
weaponized them against an American system, American
businessman and a billionaire toboot, to undermine his campaign
and to completely destroy his credibility after he and of
course, this was the lead up to the 2020.
So think of all the things now that we're going to find out
that just weren't true, that we're just a weaponized Justice
(09:04):
Department going after a political opponent.
And that was Jeff Turley's pointin his article this weekend.
Jeff Turley is Washington University law professor, and
he's often right on the mark. Even Stephen A Smith, ESPN
sports announcer, said what makes this different from
everything else? Because politicians have been
(09:24):
doing this for a long, long time.
What makes this different is that they use law enforcement to
go against a political enemy andthat's just not the way it's
done in America. That is obstruction.
That is counter democracy. So the saga continues.
Jim Watkins, see you next time on America TODAY.
Host
JIM WATKINS
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