The Written Voice

The finding

In five experiments, people predicted that their tone would be understood about four times out of five. It was understood about half the time. For sarcasm, that was hardly better than guessing.

The cause is not carelessness. You hear the sentence in your own voice as you write it, and that voice does not travel with the message.

What to do

Read it again as if the reader disliked you

Before you send anything sensitive, read it once more in the most unfriendly voice you can imagine. An unclear message does not stay neutral. The reader understands it according to the mood they are already in. This is the easiest way to find the sentence that will be taken the wrong way.

In five experiments, people overestimated how well their tone (sarcasm, seriousness or humour) would be understood in an email. They were confident of being understood much more often than they actually were.

Limits of the study: The study used email in 2005, not messaging apps. The cause still applies. The exact figures may not.

Step 1

Send the sentence you really meant, not the shortest version of it.

A very short message seems cold. A few more words cost you four seconds, and that is less than the cost of being misunderstood.

What to do

One message, not six

Put the whole thing in one message, though. A burst of six messages looks anxious, whatever the messages say, and it takes away their choice about when to reply. If it needs six messages, it needs a call.

This is our own view. The study above shows that tone does not travel well in text. The idea that a few more words fix it is our judgement, not a research finding.

Step 2

Nobody can answer “We should do something”. They can answer “Dinner on Thursday”.

Being vague is a polite way of avoiding the question. It protects you from a clear no, because you never ask a clear question.

What to do

Put it in the same message

Put the day and the place in the same message as the suggestion. If you ask whether they are free before you say what for, they have to agree to something unknown, and most people refuse that.

In lab and field studies, people underestimated, by as much as half, how likely others were to agree to a direct and specific request.

Limits of the study: The study looked at requests for help, not invitations. The result points in a useful direction, but it is not proof.

Step 3

Send a voice note or call. The rule is simple: when your intention matters more than the information, text is the wrong choice.

When people heard a view they disagreed with, they judged the speaker as more thoughtful, more reasonable and more human than when they read the same words.

What to do

Three messages each is the limit

If a disagreement is still going after three messages each, a fourth will not settle it. That is the moment to move it to a call. Saying so, “this is going badly in text, can I call you”, is the warmest thing in the whole exchange.

When people heard an opposing opinion and did not read it, they judged the speaker as more thoughtful and more human, and were less likely to see them as less than human.

Limits of the study: The study tested political and social disagreements between strangers. Applying it to a text argument with someone you are dating is our own step.

Explaining defends you. You describe what you meant, why it was reasonable, and how they got it wrong, and every sentence is about you.

Saying it again helps the reader. Say the same thing plainly and warmly, in completely new words. Or call, which is faster and ends the matter.

The same rule applies when you reply late. Simply reply. Do not start with an explanation that nobody asked for, because it turns the delay into the subject and asks them to reassure you.