It is a problem that many people never even realized existed: drunken e-mailing. Evidently, drunken late-night e-mail rants have become a problem for many people, so much so that even Google has stepped in to help out. The company has recently unveiled its new Mail Goggles feature on Gmail, to help discourage unfortunate late-night e-mails, fueled by alcohol and tiredness.
Mail Goggles is as simple a program as they come — basically, it requires users to perform a series of easy math problems within a 60 second time frame before sending e-mails. The program will be in effect between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., the most common time in which drunken e-mail rants are authored and sent.
The goal of the program is to be a kind of safeguard, and give users a chance to think twice (or even three or four times) before sending off any e-mail authored late at night. The implications are clear: how many of us have come home after a few cocktails and wanted to fire off a hostile e-mail to our boss or mother-in-law? Google’s Mail Goggles protects the user against spontaneous late-night e-mails that they could very well end up regretting in the morning.
Some have compared the feature to a trigger lock on the gun. And let’s face it, in many ways the written word can be just as damaging as a firearm — especially if it ends up costing us our job, relationship or friends. By asking a series of math questions before allowing e-mails to be sent, Male Goggles is assuring that we are relatively sober and relatively sure we want to send what we’ve written. Who knows how many jobs this feature could save in the long run?
An article in the New York Times brings up an interesting point about the program though; have we become so dependent on the Internet that it is now prudent to have sobriety checks along the information superhighway?
Other pundits have praised the invention, and wondered aloud why we can’t have the same type of protective features in our cell phones. After all, many a foolish decision or relationship has been entered into because of late-night (and often inebriated) text messages. Having the equivalent of Google Mail Goggles on a mobile phone could be advantageous for many people.
Of course, we are all taught to think carefully about our correspondence with others, and to consider our words carefully before sending an e-mail, text, or even an old-fashioned letter. Still, some would say that it’s easier said than done, and in the heat of passion is very easy to send angry or inappropriate messages that could have far-reaching consequences. For this reason alone, Male Goggles is a welcome addition to Gmail, and could potentially become a standard feature on many web-based e-mail programs.
