Survey reveals most irritating emailers

Think carefully before you click ‘send’ – the way you scribe your emails could say more about you than you realise, a survey has found.

An AOL survey of 3,000 computer-users has identified six different types of “emailers” based on the type of message they typically send.

The most annoying type of emailer, according to 27 per cent of participants, is the Cryptic – those that litter their messages with acronyms and abbreviations as way to either save time or impress colleagues.

Those that refuse to use abbreviations but use endless paragraphs of dense, multi-syllable explanation instead were dubbed the Author – a type voted the second most irritating emailer.

In third place was the Forwarder, the earnest pest that makes sure every joke and email chain letter is passed on to everyone in their address book, followed by The Player – the furtive type that blind copies colleagues into emails and blames server problems for emails they “never received”.

A Smiley, someone that sends emails adorned with cartoon emoticons, was pipped to the post as the most popular emailer by the Succincts, those that keep emails short and sweet – just two per cent of people described them as annoying.

Sheila Sang, head of AOL lifestyle, said: “The results of the survey show that people need to think more about their email netiquette before they hit send. Time is an issue, so many people rush an email instead of taking a moment to consider how it will be received, but it is always worth re-reading it before sending."