What your e-mails say about you

May 22, 2009 by
Filed under: Communication, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views 

E-mails you send may say more about you to the reader than you intend.

Recipients of e-mails make all kinds of judgments about the sender based on the language used, according to British e-mail provider GMX. For example:

  • 40% of respondents make judgements about the sender’s intelligence
  • 20% makes guesses about the person’s age, and
  • 16% use the language to guess the sender’s social class.

Sounds like one more reason to revise important messages before they’re sent.

Some of the study’s other interesting findings:

  • 26% of people use e-mail to avoid stressful conversations, and
  • 36% would use e-mail to ask someone on a date.

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Comments

One Comment on What your e-mails say about you

  1. mike R on Tue, 2nd Jun 2009 3:33 pm

    2. Recipients of e-mails make all kinds of judgments about the sender based on the language used, according to British e-mail provider GMX. For example:

    40% of respondents make judgements about the sender’s intelligence
    20% makes guesses about the person’s age, and
    16% use the language to guess the sender’s social class.

    Before anyone gets TOO worked up about this, we form impressions/judgments from whatever we have available. Think about whenever you get any correspondance. Do you look at the spelling and grammer and make any judgments? Do you look at the handwriting and legibility and make any judgments? Think about when you meet someone. What goes through your head about their age, intelligence, and social class?

    The same attention to detail you put into writing a letter or meeting someone should apply to emails as well. You only get one chance to make a first impression.