Daniel Goleman on email communication

[HV Psychodrama]

in some way this is like stating that reading a novel is not as rich an experience as seeing a movie..which is, for most of us, totally un true,

and yet, I do agree that in my experience, something is lacking in the reading of email that leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding...

but I wonder if part of it is how we read it..fast, not something to mull over...

I know that when I get a long email I end to skip around in it, unlike a letter or a novel where I can relish each word..

So is it the writing, the reading or the context...interesting things to ponder.
Rebecca
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peter Howie 
  To: list at grouptalkweb.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 9:23 PM
  Subject: Re: Daniel Goleman on email communication


  Dear Steven,

  This is an interesting article and worth passing on.

  However it appears to contain what I consider a fundamental flaw which I am not sure is a philosophical one or simply ignorance. He states it in a couple of points: 

  "The typed words are denuded of the rich emotional context we convey in person or over the phone."
  &
  "But when we send e-mail, there's little to nothing by way of emotional valence to pick up. E-mail lacks those channels for the implicit meta-messages that, in a conversation, provide its positive or negative spin."

  This assertion of his, and I have seen it many times in email forums, is not to my knowledge based on research. 

  It appears to more based on a logical conjecture which I have come to consider as specious. It assumes a number of things of which I am making up a few here and there are probably many others. It assumes 1) that email writing is not coloured by a person's character 2) that email writing is not sufficiently coloured by a person's character that anyone else would notice 3) there is such as thing as neutral email writing 4) that email writing conveys only information of a particular sort of data-like-ness - as though the sender is only an automaton 5) obviously that email writing is different from other writing 6) that context doesn't effect the reading of an email 7) that previous emails don't effect current emails 8) that dry writing of the supposedly possible neutral kind is unlikely to produce big emotional responses 9) That strong emotions can not be projected through a few words 10) That strong emotions can't be effected by reading a few words 11) ...... And probably others.

  My experience is that email writing is like other forms of discourse - it is all about timing, context, interpretation, use of this word over that word and the inferences this bring forth in others. It is in fact because of the earlier assumptions about neutral and unemotional emails that have no meta-communicative qualities, and Goleman also makes this assumption, that have led to this wonderment at how things can so badly wrong. 

  Cheers for now

  Peter Howie
  Brisbane
  Australia




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