blog article

This article is hilarious! As a typical college student it goes without question that I will have encounters with people who are intoxicated. Just last weekend I was instant messaging with a friend and he was saying a lot of things to me that he normally wouldn’t have. The situation was entertaining but he was embarrassed about it in the morning. I think the idea that Google is creating with Mail Goggles is a good idea, and if nothing else humorous.

Mail Goggles has emailers who log on between 10pm and 4am on weekends answer several math problems correctly in one minute in order to send their message. An example of this can be found at http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/googles-mail-go.html .

Having this protection on email is smart, however I think it doesn’t cover the bulk of the problem. I don’t know if drunk emailing is more of a problem for the working, older generation, but I personally do not know of anyone who has ever sent an intoxicated message. The people I know are more prone to use text messaging, telephone calls, or instant messaging. I don’t see there being a way to put similar protection on all of these communicators. Email is such a slow process today compared to these the use of cell phones. People are almost always with their cell phones where as they are not always going to be logged into their Gmail account. Also with instant messaging many are likely to be logged in and stay logged in for much longer than you are your email, because email is instant but you don’t know when you’re going to get one, so why wait?

Kudos to Google for developing this program, I’m sure it will save many from regrets later in life. However I think that this program is just a small step in fixing a problem that has no cure.

Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/fashion/19drunk.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin
External Source:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/googles-mail-go.html