Last month I wrote about Gmail Undo Send feature. It was basically a labs feature with Gmail which allows the email user to cancel the sent email for about 20 seconds. This is very useful when you hit the send button without thinking or mistakenly.
Undo Send is a huge boon for many people and I use it quite often. I am not alone, the other day my friend Rahul Bansal also confirmed that he is addicted to Undo Send feature on Gmail.
What are the other instances of Undo Send features?
- Gmail obviously has a feature called Undo Send but apart from Gmail we can also see this feature with Skype. Skype allows canceling the latest message sent.
- I do not use this feature a lot but I do spend a lot of time on Skype. It is a little discomforting to see a message pop up and then be deleted. Our imagination can start working over-time in such instances. 😀
- Almost all social networks allow us to post updates and links and then delete them. Twitter even allows us to send a Direct Message to a friend and then delete that message from the recipients account.
Why are such features spoiling us?
I feel such features make us more dependent on an internet connection or a gadget for some basic information. We are using maps to even find our way around a neighborhood we live in. We hardly remember phone numbers now a day as all of them are saved on a mobile phone.
When I say such features are spoiling us, I am not blaming Google or other companies. Just wondering out aloud if we have too many choices and is that making us a little careless with what we say or share online? Sure we can get a lot more work done but we seem to remember a lot less.
What are your views on it? Do drop in your comments.
8 Comments
A coin has both sides… Technology is good and makes people productive. But there is a price for it. For eg, becoz of orkut and facebook people feel comfortable socializing around strangers than real people. But I am not sure Undo button is spoiling us 😛 It did save me once…
Also chk this video (Could hav been a love story) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUe3sbtqI2Q
thanks for the video. I do not want to criticize these features. The point is are we getting careless while expressing ourselves because we can always remove the post, tweet or even email in this case. 😀
@Debajyoti
Really nice video.
Technology is a double-edged sword.. you have to decide if you want to use it as a supplement or let it empower you. Even Google Instant is said to have a negative impact, as people will use less of their brain power now.
Btw, the subject of that mail looks interesting, lolz 😛
I don’t think technology is a double edged sword. Through history mostly technology has given positive results. Its just changing the way were retain and think.
Hey Aditya,
Even I am addicted to undo send features… It did saves me lot of times in professional career. So I can say it’s the best one for me 🙂
Its a boon for me too. I have used this Google Labs feature many a times.
“such features spoiling us ” is this the reason there no “thumbs up, thumbs down” option for comments and post in this site ?