世論 What Japan Thinks

I don’t think I’ve mis-sent email last year, and I can only think of two incidents in the last few years where I have. One was in the office sending to my ex-team instead of my current team, so no problem, but the other was one I meant to send privately to a single person on a mailing list but I accidentally sent it to all, complete with a none-to-flattering portrayal of the list owner. Surprisingly enough I was summarily banned… Sadly, this recent report on japan.internet.com rearding a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into mis-sent electronic mail at the workplace doesn’t dwell on the consequences suffered!

Demographics

On the 13th of March 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 81.2% of the sample was male, 8.8% in their twenties, 39.4% in their thirties, 38.8% in their forties, 11.8% in their fifties, and 1.2% in their sixties.

I’m surprised in Q1SQ2 that as many as a third of wrongly-addressed mail recipients replied to say the mail was incorrectly sent! At work we are supposed to set our mail programs to display a confirmation message before sending to give you a last chance to review data, although I don’t know how effective that is, or indeed if many people actually bother with it.

Research results

Of the complete sample, 303 people used electronic mail at work. They were asked the following question.

Q1: Within the last year have you ever sent an email to the wrong person? (Sample size=303)

Yes (to SQs)	39.9%
No	56.8%
Don’t know	3.3%

Q1SQ1: Within the last year how many times have you sent an email to the wrong address? (Sample size=121)

Once	43.8%
Twice	29.8%
Thrice	11.6%
Four times	2.5%
Five to nine times	8.3%
Ten or more times	4.1%

Q1SQ2: How did you become aware that you had sent email to the wrong address? (Sample size=121, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Realised myself after sending	81	66.9%
Mistaken recipient got in touch by email, telephone, etc	42	34.7%
The person I should have sent it to got in touch to say it never came	19	15.7%
Boss, colleague, subordinate pointed out the error	10	8.3%
Other	2	1.7%