Email Rage

What Does Email Rage Mean?

Email rage is the phenomenon of users becoming extremely angry at emails that they receive. Email rage has become an issue analogous to other phenomena such as “road rage,” which also involve intense anger or hostility in particular situations.

Techopedia Explains Email Rage

There are many philosophies and ideas experts use to talk about why email rage occurs. One of them is that, according to some neuroscientists and behavioral scientists, many people are “wired to snap” by the demands of short-form media on attention spans.

However, another very real issue around email rage is related to the lack of communication options that email provides. By not allowing face-to-face or even verbal contact between people, email often obscures the emotional intent behind the message. It is very easy for a simply written email to appear hostile, condescending or passive-aggressive, regardless of the sender’s intent. Some people use emojis or emoticons to try to qualify human statements to avoid this kind of misunderstanding, but it is still a very common problem with email – that recipients mischaracterize the intentions of senders, and get extremely angry because they feel that they are being criticized or opposed, or even harassed or threatened.