Have you ever had friends who forward you numerous emails, several times a day? These friends will also forward you all the spam, all the chain letters, and all other things that they could find in their inbox. I call such friends “forwarder friends” when it comes to “online” networking, and there are many of them.

These friends have many good qualities in life; they’re very good people, and it’s nice to hang out with them. We all get along in one way or the other, and the world keeps spinning around. However, these friends love to send me “hi5” and “Friendster” emails. These emails tell me that I’ve friends on these networks, and that I should join these networks to keep in touch. Many of these friends are always online on different instant messenger programs, and they rarely talk through them, as they prefer meeting online. However, they make an exception to that rule when it comes to emailing. I don’t know how joining a network would increase communication between me and my “forwarder friends.”

I get over a thousand emails, literally, every 2 days or so. They’re all divided between a few accounts and different groups of people. The most forwarded email [or invitations] I get at the moment from my friends is from Ringo and Sms.ac . Sms.ac does a unique thing by emailing me every day, telling me that I’ve more friends on their network and that I should join them in order to send text messages to my friends. They also include an “unsubscribe” link, to let me get rid of all their emails forever [how nice of them]. Interestingly enough, those “unsubscribe options” never work, as they lead you to a page to register for the site, and nothing more. I’ve told my friends that I’m not interested in those networks, and if I was, I would have replied or joined all those networks by now. Now, I am happy that people “forward” and send me stuff. It’s different than “sending” me things. Sawai, for example, sent me an email yesterday with a file about an Artist in Venice who creates very beautiful pieces of furniture and other things, and the pictures in it were very beautiful. That’s sending me something which is useful and thus I really appreciate it [I will probably post the pictures here soon].

The “forwarder friends”, however, forward emails that say “Forward these to 10 people and your wishes will come true.” Surprisingly enough, I get multiple emails from people I don’t know, people who wish to have their wishes come true, and when they run out of more email addresses to forward the email to [several dozen wishes times 10 people], they pluck the email address from the “To” field of the original email that they received, and start adding all the people to their address book, whether or not they know those people. There is nothing wrong with forwarding in general; however, forwarding the same email repeatedly, at a few weeks interval, is not good. I have received “wishes come true after 10 emails”, “find true love after 10 emails” [which resulted in nothing but me almost running over a car], and “your phone will ring once you finish reading this email” from the same people within a few weeks, repeatedly.

Email should be treated along the same lines as a physical address; it’s ok to send lots of letters, as long as they’re all useful and interesting, and you are not sending something you yourself might know is not worth it to everyone you know. I would love to forward emails also; I might forward a news article about a restaurant not having good service to a friend who experienced a similar situation with me, or I might forward an email regarding online stalkers to someone who has people “stalking” them on their sites. However, I’m not going to forward everything I like or find interesting to everyone I know . Put some care into the emails, and the person getting the email will know that you’re intelligent and that you actually know how to interact with that person, and that you actually wish to interact with that person instead of simply trying out your emails’ “send” button.