Recently I was talking with a professional colleague who specializes in the study of communication. He believes that there are those among us who hide their gossip behind a façade of honesty; “I am just being honest.” But, from his perspective, people who pride themselves on bluntness or what they term “honesty” in dealing with others seldom like to get a taste of their own medicine. “They don’t want anyone to communicate back to them that way. They want to send out a rocket or missile, without taking any flak themselves.”
We were further contemplating how e-mail has changed the impact of gossip. The following is a summary of his basic argument:
What I have noticed is that people who communicate face-to-face verbally have less issues of ever being misunderstood. With the advent of email and instant messaging, what should be routine communication easily turns into full-blown misunderstanding. At least when people used to gossip, they were talking to someone - it was one on one. Now it’s one on 1,000. With an email, I can pass my gossip on to 100 people, then stick it in my blog and it’s on to 1,000 more people. Gossip used to be somewhat restrained. Now it’s viral, and you can’t track it down anymore. Nowadays days, where can you go to get your good name back?”
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