E-Mail

The term e-mail (occasionally email)—originally an abbreviation of electronic mail but now a word in its own right—denotes the vehicle or method for sending relatively instantaneously a message, letter, or other information object (a computer file of almost any sort containing a document, image, sound, video, spreadsheet, computer program, book, etc.) to someone by means of a computer network or computer connection.

Although e-mail is one of the more simple and straightforward computer applications currently in use over the Internet, it is also the most popular and universal and can be regarded in some measure as the interpersonal bond that holds together the global information infrastructure. E-mail enables instant personal communication between any two individuals, or between any individual and any aggregate of individuals, and between ...