Why Understanding Email is Hard

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The Christian Science Monitor just ran a good summary of recent research into why it’s hard to understand nuance in email messages.

Though e-mail is a powerful and convenient medium, researchers have identified three major problems. First and foremost, e-mail lacks cues like facial expression and tone of voice. That makes it difficult for recipients to decode meaning well. Second, the prospect of instantaneous communication creates an urgency that pressures e-mailers to think and write quickly, which can lead to carelessness. Finally, the inability to develop personal rapport over e-mail makes relationships fragile in the face of conflict.

The article also references some academic research into emotion in email, and notes that “Not only do e-mail senders overestimate their ability to communicate feelings, but e-mail recipients also overestimate their ability to correctly decode those feelings.” Academic research about disagreements and flaming dates back more than 20 years, but these latest findings are worth keeping in mind when hitting the send button.