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Emailed Threats Less Crazy Than Snail Mail

SoyChemist writes "Psychologists at the University of Nebraska have read 300 threatening letters and 99 angry emails to members of Congress. They concluded that the authors of the electronic messages show less signs of serious mental illness, but they are more profane and disorganized. The report was published in the September issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences."

4 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. why oh why oh why? by mofag · · Score: 5, Funny

    do you insists on being such a bunch of pigshit-eating donkey wanking bastards? oh look - ponies!

  2. well duh by ILuvRamen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh come on, the explanation is simple. You've got to be crazy to write a message to someone with postal mail. Welcome to the 21st century people, we have e-mail now!

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  3. A duh to go please.. by bombastinator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The same could be said for mailing a letter. I suspect the cause may lean more towards simplicity and availability.

    To sit down, find an envelope, and actually put 35 cents on the thing requires more forethought and commitment than firing off an email. It also takes at least several minutes to do, so there will be a bit more composition of thought than in an email.

    Email can be a much more heat of the moment thing, as evidenced frequently by this forum. I guarantee that if replying to this thread, or even this forum required me to mail an envelope it would not have happened.

    1. Re:A duh to go please.. by krazytekn0 · · Score: 5, Funny

      When I first read this I thought to myself "I wonder how much time people will waste to point out the current postal rate..." then I saw, there were already at least 5 corrections to your postage rate. We have to assume that each of those took at least 30 seconds to 1 minute to click "Reply to This" type in their response, post, wait for the preview, click ok. Anyway, I'm assuming that most /.ers have jobs and those all have to pay at least $14.00/hr on average which is about 23 cents/minute (gross) and we've already wasted at least 2.5 minutes here, (I don't have a job other than my son and he's sleeping right now) so that's about 57.5 cents in order to correct a 6 cent mistake. This is why they don't let IT guys do budgeting.

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