Is Your Inbox Full of Reactivit-E-Mail?

As a superbly sensitive woman (astrologically justifiable as a double water sign), I consider myself to be someone who works really, really hard to maintain emotional balance in her relationships. I am mastering the art of asking for what I need without feeling guilty. I can stay true to myself without destroying others. I've come to trust that not everything that happens to me is personal. All great and noble teachings. So what's up with me and my email?

Some people are happily distracted by their Twitters and Tweets and would have it no other way. I, on the other hand, begin sweating and twitching as I near my computer.

I am not one of those people who is at all afraid of technology. I love all the new gadgets and applications, and even married an I.T. systems engineer - but when it comes to my Inbox, there's a whole lotta something wrong going on.

I know it's said that people have a "love/hate" relationship with their computers - or technology in general. On the love side, technology provides neat new ways to "stay in touch" and "stay on top." Yet on the hate side, we recognize that it also isolates us and usurps our time. If the Internet is meant to make our lives easier, how come they're not getting easier?

I remember my first World Wide Web experience as a naively positive one. It was the days of dial-up, and I, in my early twenties, would log on and flirt away with mysterious strangers while my boyfriend slept. (Ah, youth and narcissism!) Back then, I thought of my computer as the passage to my fantasy world where I could dream and relax. Oh, how my times have changed.

When I think about the internet now, I am immediately flooded with the image of 50 new emails that all need sorting, soothing, answering, stalling, humoring or worst of all, decision-making. I am haunted by thoughts of an email "conversation" that goes back and forth for hours when a 10-minute phone call would have sufficed. And IM-ing! What stay-at-home sadist invented this?

And because I'm me, with my own special gifts, everything must be written with clarity, content, proper spelling and grammatical accuracy. A proper 'tone' must be chosen - am I responding in business tone, professional and to the point? - Or am I feeling more frisky and freewheeling, ready to ad lib and hope for the best?

Basically, I am in "reactivity" mode when I open up my browser, and I like it not.

A quick trip to Wikipedia reveals to me (and I'm paraphrasing here): Reactivity is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals alter their performance or behavior (or email) to conform to the expectations of the observer (recipient). Social desirability sways respondents to reply in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. Ugh! It's like facing an additional 50 people every day and needing to negotiate each one with poise and aplomb!

Perhaps this concept of social desirability needs to be turned into a power point show with accompanying slides of flowers and kittens and blasted out into the dub-dub-dub universe where others can learn to play along, because I find myself in a new place of needing to remind my correspondents (be it family, friends or co-workers) that email is no place to hold conversations with any emotional content beyond the casual and respectful.

I mean, in the scheme of things, thank you's and happy birthdays are weak but acceptable, poems are fine, I love you is okay (provided it's not the first time you're saying it). But when did arguing from behind the screen become a viable option? People are so 'brave' when hiding within the invisibility of their pixels! Suddenly, everyone is at the podium with keyboards for gavels, and they aren't afraid to use them. With boldface, and CAPS!

I've realized that in order to take back my right to enjoy the Internet, I will have to be proactive in getting the message out there. But seeing as how I have very little time, what with all the fretting over current conditions and all, instead of picketing internet cafes operating without therapeutic supervision or potentially organizing a march on Washington for special email education, I've decided to exploit my new blogging power for the good of all people--because in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." And, while a small drop in the water, every passive-aggressive email floating through cyberspace has a ripple effect that may just reach your shore!

So here are my new Internet rules meant to eliminate Reactivit-E-mail and make my - and possibly your - computer safe again:

• If there is emotional content, of any non-love form, leaking into your text, you must stop typing immediately and regroup.
• Use email to make real dates to talk about real stuff.
• Before hitting send, try picking up the phone.
• Breathe while typing.
• Don't use email to be confrontationally "brave," vent, or dump baggage.
• If you can't say it in person, don't say it in an email!
• Snarky, smarmy and sarcastic are hereby banned from the email state.
• And No, I couldn't tell you were kidding!

Comments

[jilljem]

Yes, ALAS, phone efficiency has become a dying art. The wonderful i-communications of the day are quite often the most efficient choice, but we must not forget that if it has the possibility of more than two rounds of emails (or an email that takes more than 10 min. to draft)... Ma Bell is still the ultimate tool. And as for passive aggressiveness in e-form...no resolve will ever come from it - I think that's been proven again and again.

[FemmeEphemera]

Looks like RobinSeattle proved Brooke right about being "brave" in cyberspace.

Otherwise, these are good common sense rules.

[AFranks]

Agreed! Conversation is a dying art. ...Where did Brooke compare herself to MLK?? Did I miss that part??

[joyfulnoise]

I am going to send this article to my friends and family. Thank you for addressing the many issues surrounding email - especially the part about "if you can't say it in person, don't say it in an email". Also, I don't know how many times I have written an email asking someone to pick-up the phone please.

[RobinSeattle]

"As a superbly sensitive woman (astrologically justifiable as a double water sign"

Sensitive and superstitious. Me no likey that combination. Those are usually two components of what I like to call psychos.

"we recognize that it also isolates us and usurps our time."

So does reading books. So should we stop doing that?

"And IM-ing! What stay-at-home sadist invented this"

I don't have any chat programs on my computer because I hate being interrupted when I'm reading on the web or working on my website. If one of my friends wants to talk to me bad enough they have my number.

"I've realized that in order to take back my right to enjoy the Internet, I will have to be proactive in getting the message out there."

Oh thank you, thank you, for saving us from ourselves oh she that cannot mind her own business.And the comparison of yourself with MLK was especially deliciously narcissistic.

[incredulousnyc]

Wow. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the universe??? For Pete's sake...switch to decaf.