The danger of email

When we’re face to face with someone, our social brain is monitoring the person we’re with continually. That part of the brain is unconsciously telling us, “Well, this person is responding that way to what you just did, so what you should do next is the following to keep things on track.”

The social brain is what makes interactions go smoothly. That part of our brain, however, is crippled online. When you’re sitting in front of your screen or are on your smartphone, there is no feedback loop. All you have is the words you send. However, there is a sort of optical illusion in the mind where you assume that all of your emotional signals that go with whatever you say or do face to face, are going along with your email, but they’re not.

And there is an actual negativity bias in email where senders think that a message was positive, but that’s because they assume all the other cues were clearly received. It’s an unconscious assumption. Receivers think that positive email was more neutral. When the sender thinks it’s neutral, receivers tend to think it’s more negative. In other words, there is a general negativity skew to email.

But then there’s another problem: Very often in face-to-face interaction you get an impulse to do something or say something and your social brain says, “Uh-uh-uh! That’s not going to be effective.” But that message never comes back to you when you’re sitting writing an email, because there’s no feedback loop.

The result is what’s called flaming. Flaming has been known since the earliest days of email. It’s when you’re worked up about something, and you sit down and you furiously type up a message and hit send. And for a split second you have a feeling of satisfaction, and then this morbid sense of, “Oh no, why did I do that? Why did I say that?” comes over you. That’s a flame. It’s a disaster. And it’s a disaster that would not have occurred face to face, most likely.

When you’re tempted to hit send when angry or frustrated, try this instead.

- Save the message as a draft.

- Take three deep breaths.

- Return to your email.

- Envision yourself as the recipient of the message.

- Would they think the message has a positive or negative tone?

- Revise as you see fit.

Taking an extra few minutes to reflect on your intention and message in an email could save you a couple of hours, days, or even weeks of headache and trouble.