Fisher
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i was reading through this article, "Dont flame me bro", http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/11/dont-flame-me-bro.html
and thought that it applied greatly to some of the arguements on here. If you cant be assed to read all of it i think that these are the two main paragraphs altho the whole of it is just as relevant. it does talk about email but look at it in the form of electronic text communication in general.
and thought that it applied greatly to some of the arguements on here. If you cant be assed to read all of it i think that these are the two main paragraphs altho the whole of it is just as relevant. it does talk about email but look at it in the form of electronic text communication in general.
Michael Marshall said:Epley explains further: "If I send a joke in an email, it'll be ambiguous when it gets to you. That's hard for me to detect: the joke is funny, and I use that knowledge to judge how you'll interpret it." But the receiver may not realise that the email is meant as a joke ??? particularly if they are in a bad mood to start with ??? and that can lead to horrified responses like "I can't believe you just said that" and to an unnecessary argument.
In 2005, Epley showed that people can vastly overestimate their ability to communicate unambiguously by email. He suggests that we find it hard to take another person's perspective when communicating electronically. Similarly, a forthcoming study by Kristin Byron found that people tend to interpret emails more negatively than other forms of communication (Academy of Management Review, volume 33, issue 2), making them even more likely to respond aggressively.
Another obvious factor is that, if you insult someone online, it's unlikely you'll face any physical retaliation for it. Epley compares the resulting psychological distance to being isolated inside a car ??? another situation that seems to make people more prone to abusiveness.