Assignment 6, Option 1 (Email Response Time)

One standard online convention I would like to look at is emails, and responding to emails. It is generally the rule to at least check your email once a day (usually it’s multiple times a day—even upwards of five times per day), and it is part of “netiquette” to respond to your emails within twenty-four hours. People come to know this norm because in today’s fast-paced world, people expect quick responses; not only do people expect fast replies, but people know that they are expected to have quick replies—it’s not polite to keep somebody waiting on an answer or email. People have an online image, and they can use self-selection theory to decide what about themselves they want others to know. The typical image, concerning the internet and “netiquette,” is probably that the person wants to be seen as not “internet savvy” but savvy enough to know how to use the internet to keep up with the times; therefore, people will try to respond at their earliest convenience within twenty-four hours. Professors usually announce that students should not expect a response within two hours, but it was reasonable for students to expect a response within twenty-four hours; all of my professors have, in one way or another, announced this in the beginning of the semester. I know that if I were to receive an email from a professor or TA, it would only be polite of me to respond within twenty-four hours.

Because this is an un-moderated setting, “the Leviathan would emerge with more difficulty were it not for human willingness to conform” (Wallace 70). Conformity is the Leviathan here, and it pushes people to conform to a certain “netiquette” when dealing with the internet. Wallace suggests that another Leviathan that may be gaining power is the Leviathan of Internet Service Providers, with their ability to take away your account at any time (71). This is a form of moderation, and while it is not as obvious as a moderator in a chat room, who has the ability to instantly kick a violator out of the chat room, the ISP can take complaints into account and be the ultimate judge of who stays and who goes (Wallace 71). Another Leviathan that, I imagine, plays a vital role in the timeframe of email responses is the negative feedback you will receive (multiple emails requesting the same information, emails from other members, emails emphasizing that time is an issue, emails with a harsh tone of voice, etc.) if you do not respond within a certain timeframe. We learn through mistakes, and after our first mistake, and our first reprimand, we learn that a Leviathan exists, and we must follow its rules.

From my personal experience with emails, and the response of emails, I have found that people oftentimes expect email responses faster than within twenty-four hours. I sit on the board of a few organizations, and usually when somebody needs something, they will email me their request. I usually check my email once every hour (minus the hours I am sleeping!), and will respond as quick as possible, but I have run into situations where even that wasn’t fast enough of a response. At that point, I tell the other members of the executive board that if they need something that is urgent, while email maybe be the most formal (as a written request), cell phone has a much higher tone of urgency. It is hard in CMC to dictate the timeframe for email responses, but it has been a pretty standard norm to reply as soon as possible!