Email’s Dark Side: 10 Psychology Studies

Irritating emailers

A fluffly AOL survey has classified the most irritating types of emailers by the type of emails they send (Woffenden, 2004). In order of how irritating, from most to least:

1. The cryptic: rated the most irritating type of emailer, this person fills their emails with unexplained acronyms, mostly to try and impress the boss.
2. The author: thinks they are writing a novel not an email.
3. The forwarder: sends on every idiotic chain letter and joke they receive, apparently without exercising their judgement.
4. The player: claims not to have received your email. Quite irritating; but in these days of spam filters, hard to prove.
5. The smiley: emoticon users were amongst the least irritating types of emailer.
6. The succinct: the least irritating type of emailer keeps it short and to the point.