December 4th, 2007 Posted in Outlook Email | 2 Comments »
Published in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 26th November 2007
Written by Lia Timson
AUSTRALIANS are impulsive email users and oblivious to online etiquette, new research has found. The study among a representative sample of full-time workers in all Australian states found the majority are trigger-happy e-mailers who often send communications to the wrong person or in the wrong tone because they don’t stop to think.
Rob Keller, research director at Arnold + Bolingbroke, the firm responsible for the Communications Conundrum study, says 66 per cent of people admit responding to emails automatically without giving them proper consideration and before they decide whether emailing is the best form of reply.
Only a third of respondents considered which reply method to use, with even fewer choosing a phone call or a face-to-face chat as an alternative. Women were the worst offenders, being 11 per cent more likely to abuse email than men. “People generally click reply and send to make it go away. It seems they are keen to get on with work because dealing with email takes so much time,” Keller says.
But the need for expedience is creating misunderstanding.
Nearly half the respondents had accidentally sent a message to the wrong recipient, while 51 per cent sent one that was misunderstood. Nearly half felt angry, embarrassed or frustrated at times by incorrect missives.
“We were surprised at the extent of the problem.” he says. “As email users we think about these things in the back of our minds, but this confirms it.”
Keller didn’t study email users’ habits at home but it is likely that work habits are repeated in all email communication
“In a general sense, because it comes down to people’s personalities and how considered and careful they are, there is a likelihood it would happen in their personal life as well,” he says.
Etiquette author and coach Patsy Rowe is appalled by the results.
“People are getting silly. They send an email to people sitting five cubicles away from them in the office,” she says.
“I probably couldn’t run my business without email either but we need to be a bit more discerning.”
The Australian report follows a larger study in January by the global research firm Forrester, which found email dominates people’s daily online activities. It found 72 per cent of American respondents used it daily, compared with the other two most popular online activities - playing games (16 per cent) and instant messaging (10 per cent).
The study was commissioned by Citrix Online, a firm that hopes e-mailers will use its web conferencing products for some online communications instead.
It seems decades of emailing haven’t taught users much in the way of considered thinking. A 2005 study among marketing and advertising executives by US recruiter The Creative Group found people were constantly annoyed by emails, especially when unnecessarily copied on “reply all” messages.
Back then, the advice was to stop and think. “Before sending your message, be sure that everyone you are replying to needs to see the information,” the authors said.
My comment on this topic: get yourself a copy of the e-book “Master Your Inbox” and you are way ahead of the game.
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