SPEEDY DELIVERY INSTANT COMMUNICATION VIA E-MAIL CAN BE A

Read the fine print on virtually any product or business ad larger than a classified, and you're sure to find a short sequence of letters, numbers and punctuation marks that could easily have been mistaken for packaging or distribution gibberish by all but the most painfully computer literate just a few short years ago.

These days, however, we instantly recognize those bizarre little codes as e-mail addresses, and we're all well aware of the revolution taking place in the business world as old-fashioned commerce frantically tries to catch up with cyberspace.

But as anyone living far away from friends and family will tell you, this pre-millenium miracle has had a dramatic effect of a more personal nature. For many, having the ability to communicate instantly with distant loved ones for free is a life-changing convenience worth more than handsome profits and ground-level stock opportunities. Traditionally havens for homesickness, colleges and universities are now heavily populated with people who depend on e-mail to act as an open channel to the lives they left behind. The pressures of academia and the difficulties involved in learning to live half an ocean away from her home state of Hawaii have made the past three years challenging ones for elementary education student Heidi Whiteman. Now a 21-year-old junior at Whitworth College, she uses e-mail as a quick and easy way to maintain her relationships while staying on top of essential bits of news from her old stomping grounds. "It makes me feel more stable knowing that everything is OK at home," she said. Whiteman added that her pocketbook is grateful for her use of e-mail, since it strongly curbs her tendency to make extended long-distance phone calls. Whidbey Island native Sarah Everett, also a student at Whitworth, said that without e-mail, she would probably get around to corresponding with each of her friends back home about once a month. Instead, the 21-year-old history major stays in weekly contact with nearly 15 people, including two British friends she met while on a trip to Europe, a friend in Florida, another in Seattle and a brother in Bellingham. Dutch foreign exchange student Fons Jan Geurtsen said the existence of e-mail has made his stay in the United States more comfortable and economical by eliminating his need for costly international postage and even costlier phone rates. Jan Geurtsen, a journalism student, writes a column detailing his experiences with American culture for the student newspaper at his home university in Holland, an arrangement that would be much more difficult without e-mail. After recognizing how important e-mail was becoming for many students, Whitworth's Director of Instructional Resources Kenneth Pecka said the school decided last year to install a series of e-mail stations -- computers placed in public areas programmed to do nothing but send, receive and store e-mail. Though access was already available through the school's computer labs, Pecka said the stations provide an especially convenient way for students to write or pick up mail during the short breaks they get each day. Students are by no means the only group making use of e-mail to shrink their social world. Military personnel also find great advantages to e-mail. Lt. Amy Haedt of the public affairs office at Fairchild Air Force Base said that for the past couple of years, the Air Force has gone out of its way to ensure all persons deployed overseas have reasonable access to e-mail. Until now, the military has been forced to rely on a commercial e-mail provider to handle its e-mail comunications. On March 30, however, the Air Force began using its own online service provider. Called Global Internet Mail (G.I. Mail), the system is being used for both personal correspondence and official military business. The complete absence of commercial advertising will allow the $100,000 system to run faster and cleaner than any commercial provider, and because it is owned and operated by the goverment, security on the system is better. In addition to helping close friends and family members stay in touch during long absences, the Internet has also made it easier to track down long-lost relatives and friends from years gone by. Sites like Infospace's International Directory and Excite's People Finder allow users to locate the names, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of people all over the world at the click of a mouse. There are even sites, such as Yahoo's Map Service, which can provide you with a map showing where the person in question resides. As e-mail and Internet culture become increasingly routine parts of the daily lives of millions, it gets easier and easier for those who don't already have access to acquire it. Most public libraries now offer free Internet services to anyone with a library card willing to attend a short orientation program. In addition, many people can get an account through their employer and nearly all students are now offered free or almost free e-mail through their school's computer system. For those who want the convenience of having e-mail and the Internet in their home but not the hassles and expense of owning a computer, Web TV is now available for about $250 plus the cost of a printer, a fraction of the price of a full-fledged PC. The service's search engine is capable of zooming around the Internet as fast as any 586 processor, yet requires no real technical knowledge to operate. For separated family members, close friends and sweethearts, no amount of technical wizardry can ever truly make up for the gap created by one another's absence. But thanks to e-mail, the cruel dictates of distance are now a little weaker than ever before.

Copyright 1998 Cowles Publishing Company
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