🚀 go-pugleaf

Have you ever sent a computer msg that was misunderstood by the receiver 
and caused him/her to have ill feelings toward you that were never intended 
by you?  Have you ever been the receiver in such a situation?

Because computer mail is becoming more and more a part of people's lives, 
especially in the academic and business domains, these kinds of problems in 
relationships will occur more and more frequently, it seems.

I would like to discuss the phenomenon a little here, if I may, and then 
solicit feedback that any of you may like to give me.

		*		*		*

Computer mail makes written communication very easy, but this great ease may 
lead to problems in relationships due to misunderstandings of content, or more 
frequently, misunderstandings of motivation and feelings.  More written msgs 
will be sent more quickly than without computer mail, so the chance of 
misunderstandings is greatly increased.

More specifically, the sender of a written msg may not have a very accurate 
idea of the way the receiver will understand the msg and of the impact on the 
receiver's feelings.  And if the msg unexpectedly leads to misunderstanding or 
ill feelings, the sender is not present to correct the msg for the receiver, 
as he would be in oral communication by phone or in person.

On the other hand, the more frequent the two people interact orally, the less 
chance there is of misunderstanding a written msg, and the more chance there 
is of correcting a misunderstanding that did occur.

Several aspects and conjectures concerning written communication that one 
might consider include these:

1. Communication of Emotion
   a. Sender
      The sender may tend to communicate stronger emotion, than in oral
      conversation, because the receiver is not present.  This strengthening
      may occur because the sender doesn't care as much about the effect on
      the absent receiver, or because the sender may unconsciously feel like
      greater emphasis is needed because he can't see the receiver's ongoing
      response and doesn't realize how strong it really is.
   b. Receiver
      The receiver may tend to feel stronger emotion than the sender
      intended to communicate, especially if the emotion is negative.
   c. Combined effect
      Putting the two effects together, causes a written msg to generate a
      much stronger emotional impact than intended or expected by the
      sender.  I think that a good example is when a person replies to a
      msg addressed to a bulletin board or an alias and accidentally sends
      his reply to the bulletin board or alias.  He may then receive a
      barrage of msgs, some worded very strongly and negatively.  The
      impact of each such msg is probably much greater than the sender
      intends or expects, and the end result may be very ill feelings.
2. Communication of subtle humor
   Subtleties may not come through the written medium as expected,
   leaving the receiver with different feelings than intended, maybe
   negative feelings.
3. Use of receiver's or sender's name
   Omission of either may leave the receiver with a feeling of very
   impersonal communication, not intended by the sender.
4. Delay or absence of reply
   Since sending computer mail is so easy, delay or absence of a reply
   may leave the sender wondering if he accidentally offended the receiver,
   especially if the msg send is short and the reply is expected to be short.
   Just the same:
   Since sending computer mail is so easy, some people may receive too many
   msgs to handle, and would be spending too much time answering mail if
   they tried to answer them all.  This would be more true of managers and
   instructors, whom a lot of people have reason to contact.  Maybe it would
   be good for the mail system to have form replies for this situation --
   at the user's request, a reply might be sent saying, "Due to the large
   number of msgs I receive, I am too busy to read and reply to your
   msg.  Please come and see me during office hours if you would like to
   discuss the matter with me and receive an answer."  Another reply might
   be, "I received your msg, but I am very busy and will not be able to reply
   for some time."

Again, let me mention that the greater the frequency of oral contact between
the sender and receiver the less the chance of these misunderstandings.

Since computer mail is becoming more and more important to our society, and 
to our relationships with other people, maybe its impact is worth researching 
by social psychologists.

Finally, I encourage you to send me any perspective you may have on this 
matter, in particular, any personal experiences as sender or receiver.  I am 
interested in knowing if you feel that this is an important concern or not.  

- - -