Mass amounts of pointless emails are spreading through the inboxes of Parker faster than you can say “Congrats Chess Club!” Whether they are entire conversations carried out through “reply-all”, countless reminders for club meetings, or people asking about lost belongings, it’s an issue that cannot be ignored any longer.
The standard Parker student receives on average nearly 10 emails a day, many of which have nothing to do with them. Sophomore Ashley Williams said, “When I get emails about clubs, I don’t look at them because I get too many. I don’t go to the clubs because I get too many emails.” This sentiment is shared by many of Parker’s students.
Others, such as sophomore Lula Notz, have a slightly different opinion. “I actually enjoy them because imagining someone sitting down and thinking about how they are going to phrase an email to the entire school makes me laugh,” she said. This highlights the root of the issue: how does one send an email that is simultaneously specific enough to reach the intended members of the organization and is also broad enough for the whole high school?
The myriad of pointless emails a student receives gets in the way of the pertinent information that could be in their inbox. The onslaught of impersonal emails about clubs has two easy fixes, portal notifications or Google Classroom announcements.
CTC, the Computer Technology Committee, has implemented the ability for club, affinity, and committee group heads to put their meetings on Skilldule, which will be visible to anyone who has joined the club portal page and the monitors stationed all over the Upper School hallways. Not only that, but club heads can send out messages informing only the members of their group about upcoming meetings. Understandably, many group leaders choose to send emails to the entire high school to raise awareness and traction for their club. For the sake (and sanity) of Upper School students, sending these emails only for the most crucial events would help declutter the landfill that is Parker’s inbox.
Some organizations, such as the Multi-Racial Affinity group or “The Weekly” chose to create Google Classrooms for their members. This is another great way to avoid overwhelming student’s emails and make sure that the people who need to receive reminders for club meetings or events can.
Not only have Parker students’ inboxes become a timetable for meetings but also an unofficial lost-and-found. Emails about lost Airpods, backpacks, jewelry, and other precious possessions permeate Parker’s mailboxes through no fault of the sender –– there is hardly any other option for those with missing items. Perhaps an online forum where students can post their missing belongings in a manner that is easily accessible to the Upper School would be a solution to this issue.
The sheer number of emails that Parker students receive daily is enough to raise a few flags that something is amiss. There are many different solutions to this problem, and it’s up to the high school as a whole to work together to declutter our inboxes.
