E-mail, and other forms of cowardice

Led Zeppelin--"Communication Breakdown (live)" (mp3)

We are all emailers these days, and probably texters, maybe even twitterers. I don't know how far this road you've gone. But one thing is for certain. E-mail, texting, and the like are turning us into a bunch of cowards. How much easier it is to send an electronic message to get out of a social engagement, to confront a problem, to avoid another person, even to end a relationship. For most of us, we fall back on the safety of those non-personal contacts more and more, so much so that they are quickly becoming the norm.

It has probably reached the point where psychologists and sociologists will begin analyzing all of us based on our computer habits. And those habits are developing and solidifying quickly. I've taken the liberty below of trying to categorize some of those behaviors, at least where e-mail is involved.

Now, here's the good news. As you look through the list that follows, remind yourself that you can still get out of almost anything computer-related by claiming that a mistake was involved--I hit the wrong button, I got overwhelmed, I didn't know how to _______, I didn't mean to. So be brave, my friends, be technological--there's always a way out.

Which one(s) below are you?

a) The Constant Gardner--You check your email obsessively and compulsively, at all times of the day, from work, from home, last thing before you go to bed and first thing when you wake up. You pride yourself on knowing as much as possible, responding as quickly as you can. Sometimes you hit the "Check Mail" button before the persons you sent your last email could possibly have responded, even at today's cyber speed. Email owns you.

b) The Picky Eater--When the same person sends you a bunch of emails over the course of a day or week, you only respond to the ones that you "like," leaving the sender in a confused tizzy as to what happened to the others. It is the more challenging emails that you tend to avoid. When you do respond to those, it is when the sender least expects--either he's forgotten about it or when you can knock him off balance, because by the time you finally respond, he is completely paranoid about his standing with you and probably his job.

c) The Procrastinator--Even though it is 2009, you have yet to figure out that emails are time-sensitive, that you cannot read an email today and truly believe that you will not respond to it today or tomorrow, but will respond, with all good intentions, sometime in the near future. By that time, of course, newer, more immediate, more pressing emails have captured your attention, emails whose importance you recognize, and so you assure yourself that you will get to them as soon as you can. After you read the even newer batch of emails that are coming in even now.

d) The Caveman--You are the old person, the Luddite, the person in your group with principles who isn't going to get caught up in this whole computer thing. You're a face-to-face guy who does things the old-fashioned way, when personality mattered and a man's handshake was his bond. The problem is that every meeting you are supposed to attend, every change in policy, every new procedure, every important contact that everyone wants to have with you (because they think you're a dinosaur) is racing at you over the Internet on that newfangled thing that the powers that be have forced you to keep on your desk.

e) The Comet--Not as in a speedy thing racing across the sky, but as in a speedy thing racing across the sky that has a really, really long tail. It's the tail that I'm talking about here. You keep responding to and forwarding emails that capture an entire conversation so that when somebody gets it, they, too, can track the chronology. The problem is that way, way, way down there at the bottom is something that might have been sent "for your eyes only," but that you have since been sending all over the place. Oops.

f) Linkman--Like any other superhero, you have a gift that no one else has. You love to get and send emails. The ones you get inspire you to respond with something else that you've come across, your understanding of the connectedness of the universe, your ability to outdo whatever message comes your way. So you respond by inviting others to follow new links you send them. To communicate with you, they always have to go somewhere else, because when they see you in person, you'll say, "Hey, did you ever check out that link I sent you?" And then the burden and the guilt are on them. Because if they say, "No," there's always that implied "Why not? It was good. It was worth your time. I didn't send that link to just anyone. I'd appreciate it if next time, if it isn't too much trouble, you might take the time to go to my link." Linkman, you outlink all of us.

g) The Black Hole--You get them, you read them, but you don't respond to them. In your mind, you have responded simply by reading them. E-mail, to you, is not a two-way form of communication. You get informed, and that's where it stops. You ask someone for something and they send and you get it, so that should be the end of it. Forget that the person who sent it might like to know that you have received it. Forget that sometimes a person just likes to get a "Thanks" or a "Got it" or a "We'll talk soon" or something to keep the communication going.

h) The Triangulator--You like to involve many other people in a communication, so that you can cover your ass, so that you can involve higher-ups, so that you can build agreement for your position, so that you can keep everyone in the know. At your cleverest, you are a "blind copier," you love the bcc option where you can inform other people about how brave you are, without the person you're confronting even knowing about it.

NOTE: lest you think I am immune, I find myself falling at various times into at least the patterns of a), e), and h). I know there are more email patterns than I've suggested here. I'd love to see some of the ones you come up with.