It seems like email has become a daily part of our culture. We use it to communicate with friends, family, colleagues, business associates– it’s a way to stay in touch with the world! However, people do say that there are certain things that you have to do in email that you may not necessarily think about when you are having the same conversation with someone face-to-face. This is why a lot of people use emotion icons in their email (ex. 🙂 or :O!) to express their feelings so they are not misinterpreted.
An interesting study by Daniel A. Menchik and Xiaoli Tian of the University of Chicago found that people are using more integrative strategies in their email signatures and conversations to communicate effectively. I think that this is interesting to consider because I believe that this is definitely true. However, I feel that you can definitely see someone’s personality in their emails as well.
For example, for me– I am definitely one that uses emotion icons a lot (especially the happy face) and I always use the same signature in my emails. I think that email etiquette is very important, especially to maintain your reputation online. Emails are a great way to communicate with others, but it is important to recognize that emails can become public and may be misinterpreted. I would also argue that emails are not the only form of online communication that this is true in, but look at online discussion forums and social networking web sites (ex. Facebook and MySpace). In other words, I think that emotion icons can help in communicating not only in email conversations, but other online conversations as well. 🙂
In other words, read over what you have written before you send it, and make sure that it is not something that you would want to have on the front page of the newspaper! 🙂 Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen 🙂
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