Email ettiquite: My how things have changed

I use to write pretty long, and I would hope, pretty decent letters to all my friends and family on a semi regular basis. Alas ever since the Internet age, no one really writes letters anymore, instead they send tweets, texts & emails. Which while very quick and practical, is getting further and further away from proper etiquette when it comes to personal correspondence. An example of this would be the phenomena of not returning people's emails. For just about any email, unless you have some pretty severe physically or mental problems, takes less than a minute to write and send. That is if it is a reasonably short email mind you. So when anyone tells you they didn't have the time to respond to your email, they are lying their asses off! I mean even if they were truthfully busy, how hard is it to say, "Sorry I'm frightfully busy at the moment, but I will write you back just as soon as I can." That sentence online took me less than 5 seconds to write and if you do not have 5 seconds to spare for a supposed friend, than you need to rethink your career or life path. Claiming you never got the email in the first place as the reason you haven't replied is another rather grandiose faux pas. Especially since a lot of email programs or social networks can tell when a message what read and/or when you last signed on. MySpace is notorious for that. So before you compound a bad situation with a lie, you might want to think about what sort of program the email you supposedly didn't get and are ignoring was sent from initially, as well as the sender's computer savvy. It might save yous me embarrassment later as well as a friendship. I personally respond to most emails within 24 hours, even if it's just to say I am busy at the moment but will respond properly later on. I think everyone should strive for the same results...I think you know who you are!