The Psychology of E-Mail

The thrill of getting a new message. You click on it, read it, and then maybe you ask yourself questions like :
– Why did it take so long for this person to respond?
– Why did she respond to certain parts of my message and not to others?
– Why is it so short?
– Why is it so long and rambling?
– Was the sender preoccupied by something else at the time?
– Does it invite a response?
– How was it signed?
Without a face and a voice, there is a lot of room for conjecture.

E-mail offers the sender possibilities not available in face-to-face conversation:
– A shy person who averts her eyes when speaking to another all of a sudden can become assertive, even aggressive.
– A serious person can suddenly become funny by injecting uncharacteristic humor.
– A cautious person can write and re-write a message, saving in draft until it has reached perfection or at least acceptance.
– A person of inferior intelligence can use someone else’s words with little chance for detection.
– The recipient may not be able to detect the sender’s anxiety as she struggles with a difficult concept or emotion.

The receiver also has options not available in face-to-face conversation:
– She can choose to ignore the message.
– She can delete it without ever opening it.
– She can open it, react to it, write a scathing comment, and then take it back by choosing not to send it.
– She can instantly tell the world what a stupid thing someone else said – now that’s power!
– She can keep in tact the entire conversation thread so that no one has to remember how it went.

So what does talking to a screen do to us emotionally? Do we actually envision the recipient sitting right behind the screen ready to open this new communique?

How well do we deal with a 5-minute conversation that now spans a week?

How many of us consider picking up a phone as opposed to dashing off a message?

What kind of message is communicated when a message thread hits a dead end because someone either forgets or chooses not to respond?

Most people in our lives have one relationship to us: spouse, child, parent, teacher, doctor, mentor, friend, business partner, therapist. We consider that role when we choose what we say, how we address the other person, how we sign the message. This idea gets a little complicated when a friend is also a business partner or a teacher is also a therapist or there is some other combination. Can we wear different hats in different parts of the message? Or is it simpler to limit messages to just one relationship at a time? This sounds like an anal compulsive thought sequence, but I think it is significant.