"The first thing to realize is that
Internet-world is part of reality. The people you
correspond with on the network are real people with
lives and careers and habits and feelings of their
own. Things you say on the net can make you friends
or enemies, famous or notorious, included or
ostracized. You need to take the electronic part of
your life seriously. In particular, you need to
think about and consciously choose how you wish to
use the network. Regard electronic mail as part of a
larger ecology of communication media and genres --
telephone conversations, archival journals and
newsletters, professional meetings, paper mail,
voice mail, chatting in the hallway, lectures and
colloquia, job interviews, visits to other research
sites, and so forth -- each with its own attributes
and strengths. The relationships among media will
probably change and new genres will probably emerge
as the technologies evolve, but make sure that you
don't harbor the all-too-common fantasy that someday
we will live our lives entirely through electronic
channels. It's not true."
