I have enough RSI that I don't do SMS or instant messaging.  If I wanted to talk to you, but it wasn't worth a phone call, I'd punt.<p>My solution to many of the general set of problems with email you cite was to get a Fastmail account (<a href="https://www.fastmail.fm" rel="nofollow">https://www.fastmail.fm</a>), which does a fantastic job of spam filtering and would allow you to filter the email from those pesky relatives.<p>And as gexla notes, you must have <i>a</i> working email address to do a whole bunch of things on the net.