Should use of email and other social media be required for anyone?

Catherine Rampell is an under-40 person who feels everyone should communicate equally, at least if you’re a public employee. An opinion columnist for the Washington Post and a millennial, she obviously prefers instant gratification versus working to get the story. She recently wrote about use of email, or lack thereof, by some United States Senators, and she was snippy about it. Read her column yourself: Offline and out of touch in the Senate.

Rampell started her rant with an eye on Hillary Clinton’s email-gate. Clinton, not wanting to be on the public record, used her own email server to record transactions as Secretary of State, and before the server could be turned over to investigators, the Clintons (Bill helped for sure) wiped it clean, or so they say. Information may remain on the device but the Clintons will take a sledge hammer to it before giving it up and derailing Hillary’s second bid for President with embarrassing correspondence concerning her time as Secretary of State, not to mention other possibilities. This little incident may derail it anyway.

However, as soon as Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham boasted their non-use of email, as soon as other Senators did the same, Rampell got on her high horse and condemned them for lack of joining her world. It’s an amazing dichotomy that a youngster wants veterans of life to do what she does for her convenience. She thinks the world revolves around email, Twitter, Facebook and all those other ways for communication when face-to-face discussion, written correspondence transmitted by courier or the United States Postal Service, and telephone calls will do.

She may be making a good point but requiring use of email because it’s faster and more convenient to search because it’s a digital record is like requiring the use of a motorized vehicle when walking will get you there with time to spare. Rampell needs to calm down and smell the roses. Concentrate more on what Hillary Clinton has destroyed and not that others prefer a different way of life.

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