As e-mail increases, its civility often declines

You've got hate mail.

And many of your friends, co-workers and elected officials probably do as well. More and more, it seems, people are using their e-mail to do their dirty work, often spewing angry messages they wouldn't dare say in face-to-face or telephone conversations.

To find evidence of the rising tide, Salt Lake City residents need look no further than the inbox of their mayor, Rocky Anderson.

In recent weeks, Anderson's e-mail inbox has been hit with negative reactions to his most recent string of controversial comments. But researchers note Anderson is not alone.

A 2004 survey done by the Ohio-based ePolicy Institute found 16 percent of workers who use e-mail while on the job used the medium to spread "jokes, gossip, rumors or disparaging remarks."

At the Pew Internet and American Life Project, director Lee Rainie said fast and loose e-mail content is commonplace.

"People do say things in e-mail that they probably wouldn't say face-to-face or even in a phone call," he said. "There's more distance. You don't have to see somebody or hear their reaction to what you have to say."

Case in point is Anderson's mailbox.

Some of the recent influx of e-mails and formal letters are civil, but others attack Anderson in very personal ways.

"You are the poorest excuse of a man that we know," one writer said.

The mayor's office released the e-mails to the Deseret Morning News. The names of the letter writers were redacted.

Along with the bad there were the good as well.

Positive e-mailers thanked the mayor for standing against the Legacy Parkway, which many people believe will lead to more sprawl, more cars and more pollution along the Wasatch Front.

"Christy and I are expecting our first child, a girl, this April. I'm deeply troubled about her growing up in a city where the air is, at times, poisonous," one person wrote. "The air will never be clean without government action, and there will never be such action without courageous elected officials such as yourself willing to ruffle feathers. In the balance between poisonous air for our children or polite speech, I'm confident that history will find you were on the right side."