…until I started getting too many emails from some entity on campus! I don’t have a problem with emails offering different daily deals at locations like the Hazelnut Café or the weekly email from UNH Today, but what I do have a problem with is ANYONE who sends out the same exact email day, after day, after day. I’m not saying a few more people won’t respond or buy into whatever the email is about, but for the majority of people, all it will do is reinforce the kneejerk DELETE ALL EMAILS ON MY STUDENT ACCOUNT reaction.

I try to be vigilant about all my email accounts, but I get so little substance to my student account compared to any of the others, I tend to ignore or put off responding to anything in it now. The easy and consistent way to get in touch with every student is being watered down by, essentially, UNH’s personal brand of spam. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d take the canned variety over the electronic any time of the week; at least that way I get some food out of it.

The major reason that recurring/spam emails to my student account bother me is that they are coming just one semester after all clubs and organizations stopped being allowed to email all students. I agreed with that decision (despite the effect of a small drop-off in event attendance initially) because the amount of publicity emails going out was completely ridiculous. I wouldn’t check my email for a half hour in the morning and then there would suddenly be 30 emails to dispose of.

Now, while the number of emails I get to my student account is greatly reduced, the void has been replaced with a few choice senders’ ideas of what we, as students, want to see. There are other methods of publicity that are effective, so don’t water down the effectiveness of the one potential channel to reach all students. If someone gets frustrated with the content coming into an email account, what happens? Ding ding ding! They’ll check it less often and care less about what’s there!

I’m not saying everyone feels the way I do, and I’m also not saying that you can’t ever send out the same email twice. But if every week begins and ends by sending five identical emails, one every day, something isn’t right. Any other emails I get like that are usually my own fault. At some point or another, I signed up for a mailing list and will probably be on that list forever. However, I also have the option to opt-out of those (if I’m particularly motivated on a given day, that might just happen), a luxury I don’t really get with my student account, because these emails are sent to the “Students All” mailing list.

Here’s an idea, if you want to exclusively publicize with your email, you should have to send out an initial email asking if students want to be included or not. That lets folks like me opt-out; the apathetic folks don’t care enough to opt-out, and the people who want those emails choose not to opt-out. It’s a win win win!

With that off my chest, I can get back to living life. Do you agree or disagree with my editorial? Let my know, and maybe, just maybe you’ll get published in the paper! Then you’ll be like a celebrity … or something! Email any op-ed piece to [email protected]. Anonymity is guaranteed if requested!