Does anyone else find it a little offensive when total strangers confirm that yes, you are boring?
Whenever this happens, I have a hard time forgetting that most of the time, it’s a general “you”, not one specifically directed at me. I can be overly analytical like that.
So this afternoon, when the I listened to the Bryant Park Project story about the hidden meaning of e-mail addresses that was part science, mostly Cosmo quiz, I was transfixed.
You can imagine my slight disappointment, then, when the interview with author Sam Gosling was much less fluffy tell-all fun and more of a rushed segment on a study that may or may not have actually found any conclusive evidence.
The study pitted email addresses against the “big 5″ personality traits: extroversion, the Mr. Rodgers Factor (agreeableness), conscientiousness, (aka, the people who show up to work on time), neuroticism, and openness.
I should take a second to point out here that Gosling admits that the survey only showed “slightly above average” matches between e-mail address and personality. Still, that’s kind of impressive, given that e-mail addresses are limited to a certain number of characters.
This is where I expected it to get kinda juicy. Are you exceptionally practical if you use just your last name? Are you neurotic if your address is a mashup of your cats’ names? Sadly, the BPP only had time to give us a few fleeting nuggets of wisdom:
1) People with unusual and creative email addresses are generally unusual and creative.
2) If you just use your first initial and last name, you’re probably kind of boring.
3) Signatures on emails are also relevant.
Gosling notes that it’s important to do more research. For example, just because my e-mail address at my job is boring, it doesn’t mean that I am - I didn’t get to pick that one. (Note: that doesn’t say much - my personal email, as well as the one for this site are quite utilitarian.)
And then, poor Sam Gosling - he’s just getting into answering Rachel Martin’s question about whether or not people who constantly change their Facebook pictures are narcissists or not when R.Mart cuts him off. It’s like a vaudeville show, and Mike Pesca is waiting in the wings with an oversized white cane.
This is the first time I’ve heard anything this clumsy from the BPP. Whatever, I still think they’re awesome.
In related BPP / e-mail news, Spam is turning 30, and I still don’t know how to please my woman or get this desperately needed cash to Nigeria.
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