"Reply," Bad; "Reply All," Worse

Of these ten ways employees and bosses can learn to keep their cool in today's recession-straine workplaces, "stay away from the keyboard" stands out:

"It is too easy to fire off a sarcastic or hostile response" with a nasty email, says Laurence Stybel, executive-in-residence at the Suffolk University School of Management and Entrepreneurship in Boston. "Once the 'send' button is pushed, the message is out of your control, and you can't deny having made the comments."

Consider Carol Bartz, the former Yahoo chief executive who, after being ousted, subsequently fired off an email telling the entire company she had been "fired over the phone" by Yahoo's chairman. That didn't do her reputation or her future job prospects any good.

"When there is an emotional situation, email is the worst way to handle it," says Goman. "The way the person on the other end receives it is totally out of your control."

Junk E-Mails You Wish You Got

Subject: Exciting Setting of Responsorial Psalms‏

Would Jesus Tweet? It Sure Is Efficient

Evidently voice mail is going the way of IBM Selectric typewriters, being overtaken by texting, e-mails, Facebook messages, and Twits, young people's (them again) preferred methods of communication. Some people don't even listen to their voice mails anymore or await programs that will translate spoken messages into type.

Why meet, why touch, anyway? Better to sit at home with a computer on your lap and BlackBerry within reach. Why not hold the whole world at bay behind walls of pixels? Jill Colvin's article about this phenomenon buried the lead -- or maybe she wrote it this way on purpose. Her final paragraphs:

For Charlie Park, 30, a Web developer in Williamsburg, Va., a text message is more efficient and — equally important — more respectful of the recipient’s time.

“You never send an e-mail that says, ‘Hey, e-mail me back!’ You’re always sending information,” he said.

But even Mr. Park admits that sometimes, there is value in voice.

When his eldest daughter, Lucy, now 5, was learning to talk, he had to take a business trip. While away, she left him a message: “I love you daddy. I miss you. Come home soon.”

Mr. Park said he kept the message for several years and would replay it again and again.

“There is something nice about hearing people’s voices,” he said.

You think?

New Media Are Killing Communications

Catherine Blyth:

For all of the amazing, proliferating ways that we have to be in touch, face-to-face conversation is being pushed to the margins of our lives. And it has for thousands of years been the core of human interaction, and it's very good at what it's designed to do.

There's a whole lot to be said about the pleasures of a wired-up world, but there is a lot of difference between being in touch and having an interaction. If anything, I think that with too much communicating via machines, people end up hiding behind screens.

Amen. I'm struck by how often, when I suggest a person give someone a call, I learn later that he or she has chosen to send an e-mail instead. I'm also amazed at the number of two-way correspondences that end up being conducted in front of a peanut gallery thanks to the insidious "reply all" option. Relationships can go downhill fast that way, especially when people give in to the impulse to say exactly what's on their minds.

Like all newspaper people, my mother has a keen way with words. She long ago learned the knack of flaming someone in a letter or memo and then putting it in drawer while she calmed down. By and large, they stayed there. With e-mail, which makes instant communication so easy, it's easy to give in to one's worst instincts.

It's even worse in faith communities, when angry e-mailers sometimes act as though they have the warrant of heaven. For a couple of years I've been threatening to teach a class at St. John's entitled, "E-mail is Satan," not because any medium is inherently evil -- God knows, I send a lot of e-mails -- but because it can encourage anti-incarnational, anti-community impulses. Look at it this way: When you e-mail, you're trying to be in control. When you phone or meet, you're opening a dialog and relationship to possibilities you can't anticipate. Which option sounds more Godly?