By Jim Hagarty
2006
It’s a dangerous world out there. Never more so than in these times of the Internet and email, especially email.
Email is to human interaction what the microwave oven is to the preparation of food: yes it’s fast and hot but what it produces is not always the most tasty. Sometimes, it can be downright nasty. The microwave, however, has little potential to affect relationships between people (unless you stick your neighbour’s cat in one) but email is a different story. Email is instant and in the hands of a hot-tempered soul, is the equivalent of handing a flame thrower to a pyromaniac.
Heart to brain to fingers to cyberspace can be a trip of 20 seconds. A miracle of modern science but one that doesn’t lend itself to sober second thought. And speaking of sobriety, it’s like guzzling whisky straight from the bottle.
(Have I used enough metaphors and similes yet?)
In the old days, the ancient times of pre-computer, a person had to sit down, find a pen and paper and compose a response to the source of the irritation, aggravation or outright outrage. By the time all these utensils were gathered up and the writer’s wrath began to spill onto the page, the boiling blood had lost some of its bubbles. It isn’t that nasty letters were not sent, but the time taken to produce a diatribe was often just long enough for a little perspective to creep in. Many a scorching missive was torn to little pieces and discarded in the woodstove, the author feeling a bit better, at least, for having vented his or her spleen.
Those letters that did make it to the mailbox often didn’t arrive for two or three weeks – a week in the modern age – and so it was pretty hard to keep a battle going at maximum temperature, especially compared with today.
Snail mail, too, had formalities about it that might even disguise a person’s true feeling, small endearments that sometimes served to blunt the trauma of the message. Words such as “dear” and “sincerely” and “yours truly”. With email, those are almost all gone.
I am not familiar with all the protocol of email but after four years of receiving and sending such messages from the newspaper I edit, I have learned a few things.
You can pretty much count on a person being upset with you if their responses to your messages constitute one or two words only. If your name is nowhere mentioned, it might be a sign the sender can’t even bring himself to type it out.
If it is overly hostile, with most people, you can expect to either never hear from them again because of their mortification at having been so rude, or an apology will be on its way in a few hours or so.
You who are not in the newspaper business might be wondering what I am talking about. You don’t get anyone sending you anything the least big angry from one year to the next.
In this field, where strong opinions are being shared on emotion-laden issues and where public figures are regularly criticized, you can expect enemy fire to be returned and you just have to try to keep up your guard. If you left it down and respond in kind, you will normally regret it. That is why, in the “drafts” folder of my email program, there are currently 17 messages that I have crafted but never sent. Many are the dietary equivalent of hot chili peppers. They were so juicy and well-written when I put them together but I am glad none of them have yet been sent. How different my life might be right now if I’d sent them. To prevent my having a weak moment and sending some of them, I had better delete them soon.
I know of people who have gotten rid of their computers. I wonder whether or not their relationships with people have improved.
I love the Internet and email: both are invaluable tools for newspapers. But like wild horses, they need to be broken.
(I’m sorry, but I just can’t break this metaphor addiction. It’s like … oh, nevermind.)
