Email Better Than Voicemail for the Emotional Stuff!

Email Better Than Voicemail for the Emotional Stuff! 

If you want to convey something affectionate or romantic and you can't do it in person, a new study says email actually trumps voicemail. Researchers at Indiana University Bloomington analyzed both the messages being sent and the physical state of those doing the sending. Contrary to previous research and conventional wisdom suggesting that a voicemail message is more intimate than email, this study finds that, at least among the 72 college-age millennials analyzed, the act of writing produced in the sender far more emotional arousal and greater use of emotional language. The effect endures, too, since people tend to respond to messages using the same medium, thus the recipient may in turn experience similarly heightened emotions when replying. Researchers wrote: "When writing romantic emails, senders consciously or subconsciously added more positive content to their messages, perhaps to compensate for the medium's inability to convey vocal tone. Senders engage with email messages longer and may think about the task more deeply than when leaving voicemails. This extra processing may increase arousal." (Pacific Standard)