Society
Please Do Not Delete Forward This Email
Forwarding Emails Forwards Misinformation
Here is an easy, fun theory to test how quickly information degrades from authenticity into audacity:
Purposefully tape a piece or two of toilet paper to the bottom of your shoe, and exit into a public, but “controlled” arena, such as at the office. Make sure a colleague or even a friends takes note of your faux pas. Before long, a cute anecdote is circulating around the office email pool about how silly you looked or how embarrassed you were when you came out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to your shoe; and before long, by the end of the day, absurdity morphs the anecdote into asininity and before you know it, you shit your pants at the office.
Sorry for the graphic imagery, but you are already very likely thinking of a very similar situation exampling the contrast of the authentic against the comprehension of the asinine twists of the former? If the above experiment were carried out, even to a different less degrading depiction without shocking terminology about defecation, who would be the victim of the misinformation? Certainly you may feel victimized if a story were taken out of context and passed around as the truth, and rightfully so. Is the only “innocent” victim the one misreported? What about the recipients of the wrong information? Are they victims of being misled? Don’t be too quick to come to theirs, or even your own, defense.
This is exactly what happens to each of us nearly every time we receive an email forwarded to us. You recognized them at once:
- Please Forward
- Please Read
- Please Do NOT Delete
- I Don’t Normally Forward Emails, But This ONE is Really IMPORTANT
These are just a few examples of subject and opening lines to emails that anyone with an email account receives. For that matter, I get more of these than emails from Bill Gates offering me ten cents for every time I sent and get others to resend emails for their tracking and testing; I have yet to see a guest on Oprah, Good Morning America, or even a local paper story or picture of anyone holding up a huge check from Microsoft or Bill Gates making them an overnight millionaire. I am more inundated with emails from friends, family and colleagues that require my immediate attention, reading, action and forwarding to everyone I know on a daily basis than the times I have won the Internet Lotto or failed to help some heiress in Africa get her late father’s wishes and money to me. What is so important that my friend who never finds it important enough to forward emails to everyone she knows to send this one to me for my immediate consideration and call to act?
Read and Forward THIS Email Examples
Here are a few examples of emails that I have received demanding my attention and begging for my reaction
- No Presidential Prayer Day Proclamation for 2010
- UK to Outlaw Holocaust Education
As time, energy and frustration dictates, I will periodically revisit, edit and add to this entry with link over to others that are expamples.
The bottom line up front (BLUF) for me is multiform for me, I guess. First, the emails are malicious; they are meant to be hoaxes from the starting gate with the juvenile goals to see how far the farse will travel and bogging down lanes on the information superhighway. Secondly, I suppose I am a bit offended by receipt of such emails; my sensibilities are offended. Finally, I am struck by the very audacity and ignorance of those who continue to readily jump on a phantom bandwagon and then ask everyone they know to realize their ignorance while lending a hand to help them up onto the audacious and ignorant wagon with them.
Ignorance v. Stupidity
For me, there is a fine but definitive line between being ignorant to the facts or about the knowledge of something and the stupidity of further promoting and propagating untruths without the simple expenditure of a couple of keystrokes and a minute of time. In essence, it also comes down to an exercise in common sense. When we see an ad too good to be true, we almost automatically look for “the catch.” Where is that “sixth sense” when we read an email so full of pathos it is an obvious assault on our sensibilities requiring the same speculation and suspecting of the all-too-good advertisement?
Let Your Fingers Do the Walking
Before the Internet killed the yellow pages star the oft quoted and re-used slogan of the Yellow Pages, “Let your fingers do the walking,” was applied across the spectrum of academia, not just to finding a reputable plumber on a Sunday. When I didn’t understand a word, my grandfather and father were quick to point to a dictionary and let my fingers do the look-up so my brain would remember the definition and meaning. When you receive an email that begs you to get involved and forward, do yourself, your credibility and your sensibilities a favor and let your fingers type on over to a few verity checks before becoming an accomplice to stupidity:
- Google – yep, Google – put that pathetic subject line in the search engine and see what comes up; probably the real answer or a link to Urban Legends who give the “rest of the story” to these too oft BS emails. For example, if I search Google for “2010 prayer day canceled by obama” the first link to appear is to Urban Legends and merely from the viewing of the SERP (search engine results page) I can clearly read “False:…” and the story and link are a click away.
- Urban Legends – click on over and you’ll see the Paul Harvey version of your email and a verity of its authenticity in seconds; a great way to educate yourself and the sender of the email to you! Using the above example, here’s the rest of the story on the 2010 Prayer Day issue.
Keep your credibility and sensibilities in tact – suspect and check the authenticity of those outlandish emails with passionate pleading to forward to everyone you know; else everyone you know may know may know ….
