"E-mails and egos"

Found this article called "E-mails and egos" through The Morning News site. It talks about how the tone of emails are often misunderstood. I've thought about the difference between email and phone conversations before, and how phone conversations are almost nonexistent in the workplace. If I get a call, I almost want to tell them to hang up and email me with their question. Email just seems more efficient. An excerpt from the article is below.

"...In a study in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 89, No. 5, pages 925–936), they find that people overestimate both their ability to convey their intended tone–be it sarcastic, serious or funny–when they send an e-mail, as well as their ability to correctly interpret the tone of messages others send to them.

The reason for this communication disconnect, the researchers find, is egocentrism–the well-established social psychological phenomenon whereby people have a difficult time detaching themselves from their own perspectives and understanding how other people will interpret them."

Just yesterday I got a work email that sounded bitchy and I retorted back with an email that was possibly a tiny bit snippy. The co-worker immediatley emailed me back saying she didn't mean to sound like she was nagging and apologized. I guess my intended tone was transmitted accurately.