Brad Rourke

How To Be Nice Online (In Praise Of Smileys)

In my very first job, I worked for the field office of a large organization. It was 1990, and we actually had email. This was long, long before email was ubiquitous. It was a curiosity. One day, our boss’s boss’s boss came into town for a series of events. When it was over, he sent us an email critiquing how it went.

By Flickr User ella_marie
By Flickr User ella_marie

It was my first brush with just how crushing the intimate and flat nature of words on a screen could be. The boss gave a fair assessment of our performance in setting up his meetings. There was some positive and some negative. But in the office we read it as a scathing review.

Why? In the privacy of your computer screen three factors collide:

  • Everything is very intimate so you take it to heart more readily
  • In the absence of vocal intonation, the reader assumes a negative intent
  • Most people don’t compensate for this when they write their communications

The Big Boss was actually trying to be helpful, and thought we had done a pretty good job. He wasn’t mad. But to us, it felt like it was time to polish the resume.

Think about how many emails you have received that made you mad — only to discover actually after talking to your correspondent that they didn’t mean anything. Think about how many email list flame wars could have been avoided — if the people in question actually talked on the phone. Think about the people you’ve unfriended because they made an irritating comment about something you posted — and then regretted the move.

All avoidable.

We live in a world where people aren’t about to give up the ease of text-based communication like email, IM, and social network postings. So, we need to establish a few etiquette rules. These rules are already well on their way to being formed, but here are a few that I have found help me.

  1. Go overboard with positive messages. Why? Because they are ignored if they are subtle. If you are saying something that CAN be construed negatively, it WILL be construed negatively. Explanation points! Smileys! Goofy jokes! They aren’t silly — they help make the point to your reader that you aren’t mad and that your intent is to be helpful.
  2. Shift the conversation to the right medium. If you find yourself typing volumes into an IM, say, “Let’s shift to email.” Then you can compose longer messages more thoughtfully. If something is getting a little too complicated in email, pick up the phone!
  3. Remember that “no response” is usually interpreted negatively. If someone sends you an email and you want to take a few days to compose a reply, OK. But send a noted right away saying you got the note and need some time! Otherwise the sender will think you’re mad. Promise.
  4. Pay attention to your subject line. Say you work for The Widget Corp. Don’t send a note to your subordinate about next week’s staff meeting and title it “The Widget Corp.” They’ll think they’re about to read about the company’s bankruptcy filing! And then later, it it will be hard to retrieve the email because the subject line does not describe the email’s content.
  5. Be nice. Do not ever, ever, ever write something unfair about a person in an email, IM, or social network post. It WILL get shared and you WILL regret it. I have!

What rules do you have for email and other computer communications? Let me know! Add them in the comments.

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4 responses to “How To Be Nice Online (In Praise Of Smileys)”

  1. M. M.

    Don’t use CAPS!

    PEOPLE WILL ASSUME YOU ARE SCREAMING AT THEM, AND IT IS RUDE!

    Take a moment to capitalize correctly, instead of taking the easy road by using all CAPS.

    Aaron L., I love the comment and completely agree with you.

    M.M.

  2. Marlita Reddy-Hjelmfelt

    I have found that with the advent of instant messaging as a communication medium, the quality of writing style (or lack, thereof)is seeping into e-mail.

    I think it is important to remember the purpose of the intended message. Emoticons may be expressive (a smiley paints a thousand words) but if you compose an e-mail thoughtfully, they probably aren’t necessary and are verboten in the corporate world (my team notwithstanding).

    I like Aaron’s notion of spacing. I actually use ellipses for much the same purpose.

    With regard to delayed responses, especially with personal communications, I’m not sure I agree with your statement that one must send a note that you received an e-mail. If you were to send snail mail and didn’t receive a response immediately, would immediately assume the recipient were mad at you? I have a co-worker who has Outlook set to give her a read receipt for *any* e-mail (including the “Oh what a cute picture” response). Just because you *can* respond immediately, doesn’t mean you must.

    P.S. This comment was very long. Perhaps I should have e-mailed it….

  3. bradrourke

    That space thing is important, Aaron, you’re right. I have always tried to praise people in my emails, but I noticed that often people weren’t hearing it. Then I saw that I usually would embed the praise in teh middle of a paragraph. People’s eyes naturally skip over long blocks of text and they miss what’s in the middle. Now I break it out too — I had not thought to articulate that.

    Thank you.

  4. Aaron Leavy

    I’d add two considerations.

    In instant messaging I’ve found it critical to use delay and pacing more consciously. I find I type and process quickly, while this may not be true for those I talk with. I’ve learned (a little) to moderate this in person – being more measured, and not speaking so quickly or with such vigor. But it’s been a harder lesson in written communications. It’s easy to overwhelm your partner with a flurry of ideas, which can be – even if positive – assaultive and daunting.

    The other notion I’ve found is that it’s important to think about the visual spacing of emails. This means using returns and paragraph breaks as part of your tonal and communicative arsenal. If you are going to embed a compliment and a critique. Make sure that the compliment is it’s own paragraph, or has its own line. I think of these spaces as “palate cleansers.” I find you can use them not as you would in a formal report, but as a way to bring a new focus to the next sentence – almost like a long pause in a conversation.

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