Chain Emails - To forward or not to forward? That is the question.
Posted: Thursday, July 15, 2010
by Craig Haley
ThatsNonsense.com
The psychology of chain emails, chain email etiquette and why you should always think twice about hitting the forward button.
Strangely enough, I don't answer the obvious question as to why you shouldn't send chain emails until the end. But anyway.
99% of chain emails are a complete waste of time.
That is as close to a fact as you can get within the subject of chain emails, but it is not an attestable fact down only to the truth that you can't determine what is a waste of time and what is not because we are all different, and what might be the best email of the year to one person is just meaningless drivel to the next. Yet I can assure you that 99% of chain emails are a waste of time, even if you don't know it yet.
Most chain emails use these deceptive truths or lies to urge the recipient to forward it on to their friends. Be it a heart wrenching poem, a missing child, an urgent message regarding crime, a prize draw, a warning message or a silly joke, you can bet ya' bottom dollar that at some point in the message it will request you send it on.
Now usually I start at the source so the first question I would normally ask is who creates these messages and why do they do it? I'll glaze over it however, because most of it will be speculation, but a significant amount of these emails are sent out simply for kicks. In a digital world where everything wants to go viral, who doesn't want to send out the next big chain email letter that will fool millions?
What is very apparent to those who choose to study the area of chain emails, is that there are very definitive psychological profiles to those who participate (or not) in the sending of chain emails. Now don't worry kids, unlike most psychological disorders (yes, sending out constant chain emails is a disorder, albeit a digital one) these are perfectly treatable.
The first, and worst profile is the "Enforcer Forwarder". I picked this not only because it sounded neat but these serial forwarders really enforce sending emails and will do many things to ensure they get sent. After speaking with a few, it is painfully clear that this type of person thankfully a minority simply enjoy sending out emails and when they do, the content of the email is given no priority at all over the fact that they are simply sending it. Whether the content of the email is false, misleading, time wasting or just drivel, it makes no difference. Some people like to see chain emails propagate, and enjoy being part of it. It is these types of people that will create the emails in the first place.
The second profile is the "Helpful yet Nave" profile, which consists mostly of technophobes and the elderly. These people will send on most if not all chain emails in an effort to help their friends, but do little to none research and will post on most types of chain email. Probably the most prolific profile, these people will send on most chain emails until people tell them that what they are sending is mostly drivel or inaccurate. They will apologise, and next week you will get some another type of chain email from them. These people, if given enough prompting, will eventually decrease in their frequency of sending chain emails until they stop, sort of like they are on a learning curve. The time span of the learning curve will depend on the person, and in my experience, most people I know are somewhere on it. However if this type of person receives no prompting or responses questioning the emails they forward, then they will carry on regardless.
The third profile, and probably the most infuriating, is the "Defensive Nave" profile of chain email forwarders, who share most traits to the "Helpful Yet Nave" profile but with the important difference being how they react when someone replies discrediting the chain email they sent. In this case, the person who sent the email will become defensive and upset that you have questioned their email. They will think that because they have invested the time to share with you the email, that you should be thankful, even if the information is false! They will rebut your discredit with sentences like "I was only trying to warn people" or "I was only being careful" or "Why do you have to spoil everything I send you?". Most of this group can be shown the light with reasonable yet delicate counter arguments, yet some will just continue to be arrogant, in which case, politely request you be removed from their mailing list if the chain emails bother you.
The fourth profile is a profile I can proudly claim I have been a member of for almost all of my life (though not all of it). The fourth profile I have no real name for, but consist of people who don't send chain emails, with rare exceptions. We are the group that want verifiable sources and don't like lies. We don't send out propaganda, unverifiable warnings, celebrity gossip, silly jokes, online petitions, sick child sob stories or anything that requests someone passes them on, because it's just rude!
Speaking of rude, it's time for me to speak about forwarding etiquette and those rare occasions where it is considered acceptable. The following tips are not really mine, though I have reworded them. The following tips are what many online experts consider to be fair in order to make our inboxes a safer and more reliable place.
1. Make sure the recipient doesn't mind getting chain emails, and what kind of chain emails they don't mind. Some like funny jokes, and others like to be warned of relevant legitimate threats.
2. Make sure the email contains verifiable sources. Many emails warn of viruses or various threats, but make the recipient do the work to verify it. If the threat is real, then finding a source through a Google search isn't going to be such a hard task. Link to the source in the email. If you can't find one, don't send the email.
3. Never send emails that claim forwarding them on will get you a prize. Never send emails that claim something will happen if you send it on like you will receive good luck or you will see something appear on your computer screen. Don't send emails about sick dying kids. Never send emails designed to make the recipient feel bad and guilt them into sending. These emails are ALWAYS based on fantasy.
4. Make sure the email is relevant. If you send on an email about a missing child (that is true) that went missing in Arkansas, US and I (the recipient) live in Manchester, UK, I'm not going to really care that much. It may sound cold, but it's realistic.
5. Don't send virus warning messages. They're never true and irrelevant anyway, since you've got antivirus software.
6. Delete the previous email addresses from the message and send emails to multiple addresses through the BCC field. BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy meaning the recipient cannot see the other emails the message was sent to.
7. Will the recipient actually want this? Do they have something to gain from it? If not, then don't send it on.
Providing these clauses are met, sending a chain email may be considered acceptable, but not always.
Oddly enough, I haven't really answered the question about why you should not send out chain emails, other than the glaringly obvious fact that most of them are not true. There are other reasons too!
There are some pretty obvious reasons, such as they are a time wasting exercise and waste bandwidth and usually allow false information to spread virally. Additionally, they can hurt friendships as well. It may sound fickle, but we don't live in soap opera land where relationships only end because someone had an affair with someone else's sibling. Friendships can end over arguments that have escalated over something as simple as a chain email. I have seen it happen.
It usually involves the "Defensive Nave" profile of chain email forwarders.
It may sound unimportant, but because we now have the ability to share information so easily and quickly with others, we have to make sure we regulate what information we choose to share more tightly. If I passed on a typical chain email to you but told you that instead of emailing it to others, you had to personally visit the houses of 10 of your friends to pass on the information, you probably would not do it, or if you did, you would investigate the accuracy and relevancy of the information in much more depth before considering it. But why don't we do that same thing before emailing someone? Emailing the information does not make the content anymore relevant or accurate but our inhibitions are much lower in this digital age, and that's because it is easy to email someone! However, passing on chain emails because its easier isn't really a reason to do it, it's an excuse. Just because emailing information is quicker than personally visiting a friend it does not mean you shouldn't put any less effort into verifying the content of the information.
This article is designed to make us all better email users. Whilst I have pointed out the exceptions where sending forwarded email may be acceptable, in my experience 99% of chain emails are in clear violation of the etiquette tips I talked about earlier, so I stand by my original statement. 99% of chain emails are a waste of time. If you're open minded, may be you won't be so cavalier with that forward button in the future?
Craig Haley
ThatsNonsense.com
This Article has been viewed 531 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I like what you say. Chain emails irritate me, and they're really based on manipulating my vulnerability in some way. If you pass this on you'll have good luck, if you don't you're in trouble. What rubbish. Thanks, I enjoyed your article.
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