Think Before You Click

By Shane Jester, Central Web Support

The Internet has led to the advent of a level of inter-communication unlike any seen throughout the history of mankind. A simple click of a button and your thoughts and words can be sent thousands of miles in a matter of a few seconds. But has technology grown so quickly that our means of reasoning have not had time to catch up? Think about the repercussions of being able to send an E-mail to another person on a whim. Did you really mean to call that person an incoherent idiot or was that just your emotions temporarily taking over? There are lots of things you should consider before sending an E-mail to another person, especially someone you do not know. I'm going to cover two very important concepts concerning this topic.

Offensive E-Mail

Consider for a moment that you receive an offensive E-mail from another person.The fact that it has offended you means that it has obviously triggered an emotion, usually a negative one.Your first response to the person is likely to be tainted with this emotional trigger. If you were to immediately reply to this message, there is a strong chance that your E-mail would in turn offend the original sender. In a professional setting, this can lead to very poor customer relations. Regardless of the tone of the other individual, you must maintain an emotionally neutral attitude.There are ways of avoiding this trap if you  are careful. Your first reaction is to reply to the sender of the original message. However, You must remember that there is no way to take back an E-mail message and it is practically instantaneous. Unlike a written letter, you do not have the time it takes to prepare the envelope and drive to the post office to reconsider the appropriateness of your reply. You should type your response immediately, but do not send the message. Go do something else for a little while and let your emotions subside. After you have calmed down, read the message you typed earlier. You will probably be surprised at the tone of your mail message. You should now be clear-headed enough to make the appropriate corrections to your message so as not to offend your recipient.*

Bothersome Questions

A second problem associated with E-mail is also a side-effect of how easy it is to send an E-mail message.  The problem is requesting an answer to a simple question without looking for the answer yourself.  Although I do not intend to discourage people from sending questions to an administrator of a Web page, I do ask that you think about the question before you send it. Is this a question that has probably been asked frequently? If so, the answer is probably located on the Web page already. Usually, answers like these can be found in the FAQ section of a Web page or in the online documentation. It may take you a minute to find the answer to your question, but it is likely to take less time than it would to get the E-mail returning your answer. It will also diminish the number of questions received by the administrator which could lead to increased response time for the uncommon questions.

There are many other things to consider when sending or replying to E-mail. However, let's just start with these two items for now. Try to practice these rules as much as possible and remember to think before you click.

* When surfing the Net it is advisable to observe the rules of Netiquette. According to the Netiquette Home Page, " 'Netiquette' is network etiquette, the do's and don'ts of online communication. Netiquette covers both common courtesy online and the informal 'rules of the road' of cyberspace."