http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/fac/nicholas.epley/Krugeretal05.pdf

quote:

Without the benefit of paralinguistic cues such as gesture, emphasis, and intonation, it can be difficult to convey emotion and tone over electronic mail (e-mail). Five experiments suggest that this limitation is often underappreciated, such that people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can. Studies 4 and 5 further suggest that this overconfidence is born of egocentrism, the inherent difficulty of detaching oneself from one’s own perspective when evaluating the perspective of someone else. Because e-mail communicators “hear” a statement differently depending on whether they intend to be, say, sarcastic or funny, it can be difficult to appreciate that their electronic audience may not.

I thought this study would be important to since for this company since the primary communication message is over email/online posts. (I'd argue message boards follow the same trends and rules) Having, let's stick with "problems," with this exact situation in the past, I know how important it is to write in a neutral tone and get upset when someone reads into a message how I didn't intend them to and I get the consequences. Thus I encourage everyone to keep in mind how they read email messages sent to them. Someone could write in a sense of fright and their word choice could come across as hostile just as easily. "You must fix this!"

What I find to be ironic on my part is that I never considered egocentricism. I figured more ignorance on the other end and I'm slightly humbled (sheepish? shy? the exact word escapes me) in that it could have been partially my fault (re: having problems in the past) despite my knowing of the problem. I'm going to have to keep that in mind.

Just keep in mind how you write and what you read. If in doubt, send a private message asking what the writer intended before jumping to conclusions.

Isn't that why they invented smilies?

quote:

Originally posted by Bonk:
Isn't that why they invented smilies?

I thought it was.