Email is the main method of communicating in the 21st century. Instead of asking for a telephone number or a street address, people now ask for your email address. No one writes a letter and sends it in the mail anymore and very few invitations or birthday cards come through snail mail. You can even get your monthly statements for cable or Internet through email, so why do we need a post office anymore.

Email is now just a part of everyday life as the post office. However, we do need the post office to receive the packages that we order through email. When you shop online, you do need a way of getting what you paid for, so yes we still need the postal system. What email has helped to do is reduce the amount of paper that we have to recycle or throw away, thus helping the environment. It has also reduced the number of trees that need to be destroyed in order to make the paper. There is a downside to this as well. This reduction in paper production has meant the loss of many jobs in the paper and logging industry.

Email makes it possible to get messages instantly without having to wait days or weeks for a reply. It is an exceptional way of sending money to children in college because with online banking you can now send money to anyone in the world. Even if this is a complete stranger, neither person has any idea of the bank account or even the name of the bank that each one deals with. You simply get a message that someone has sent you money and you follow the steps to deposit the money right into your bank account.

With email, the world has a much smaller place. You can communicate with someone thousands of miles away in a matter of seconds. It has also reduced the cost of long distance telephone calls between business associates, friends and family. Send and receive pictures through email and keep in touch 24 hours a day.