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Is Your Email Address Telling on You?
By: Susan Goldfein / Susan’s Unfiltered Wit
Are you reluctant to share your age? Are
you reluctant to share your email address?
If you answered “yes” to the first question, and
“no” to the second, and are an AOL user, you’re
screwed!
According to popular wisdom proffered by millennials, if AOL appears
after the @, you’re fat, over 80, a technology dinosaur and live in the
suburbs. Furthermore, AOL users are clinging to an antique and should
never be taken seriously.
About anything. Because we’re blithering idiots.
Back in the day, if you wanted an email account and internet access,
AOL was it. Their disks were everywhere, free for the taking.
So we took. It was simple to establish an account, and soon the little
yellow man was running across the computer screen, assuring you that
your dial-up was working.
That’s when I began using AOL. I did have a free “Hotmail” account
for a while, but true to its name, it flooded my inbox with enticing ads
for penile implants, pills to enhance my sexual prowess, and numbers
to call if I was interested in a three-way.
Eventually, Hotmail left me cold.
Despite the fact that AOL email shaming is rampant, I won’t be
intimidated. So to people who say, “Why do you still use AOL?” I say,
“Why not?”
If something’s been working for 20 years, why change? Why go
through the trouble of contacting every person and entity you know or
have been doing business with for two decades?
AOL has good security, adequate storage, spam protection, friendly
interface, and access to mail on my other devices.
Do I really need more? If someone invents an email account that
vacuums and washes windows, I might consider switching.
I am aware that cooler alternatives to AOL do exist, like the popular
“gmail.” But I find Google so pushy. They always want to know where I
am and are constantly offering to store my passwords.
Frankly, I think they’re up to something. And what makes Google so
cool anyway? Big deal that everyone shows up for work wearing T-shirts.
And there’s “Yahoo.” But do I really want an email address that has
the resonance of a drunken cowboy slapping his horse?
Therefore, I will stand up to the derision, keep my AOL and continue
to take comfort from the familiar voice informing me that I’ve got
mail.
But I can foresee a time in the future, perhaps when I meet my
maker, that I might have to switch. Because in heaven, the only choice
may very well be the “Cloud.”
Susan Goldfein’s newest book, How to Complain When There’s
Nothing to Complain About, is available at Amazon.com, BN.com,
Read her blog at: www.SusansUnfilteredWit.com. Email Susan:
SusanGoldfein@aol.com.
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