Emails can come back to haunt us; few among us have mastered this medium, and only slowly are we realizing its dangers. Psychologist John Suler has suggested that several psychological factors can cause online disinhibition: the anonymity and invisibility that the Web provides; the time lag between sending an email message and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Email invites these lapses in social intelligence partly because the social brain flies blind online. We lack the signals we get through face-to-face interaction, when the brain reads a continual flow of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move. Can we do anything to prevent or reduce these kinds of mis-communications? Daniel Goleman, an expert on the subject, explores emotional intelligence online.
