Insincere New Year texts on phone cause stress
New Year greeting messages via smartphones are not always welcome. / Gettyimagesbank
By Kim Jae-heun
People are becoming stressed out over the influx of “insincere” New Year greeting messages delivered via their smartphones ― with some even referring to them as spam.
“I've been receiving the same New Year greetings for five years from my colleagues and friends and surprisingly, they always say exactly the same thing,” said Park Ji-ho, a 32-year-old office worker. “Sometimes people send me a message without my name in it. I don't think they even know who they are sending the greeting to.”
Lee Jung-soo, a 29-year-old graduate student, said when he receives New Year greeting texts from his friends they obviously have been copied and pasted with only the names being changed. Lee doesn't understand why people send these messages.
“I don't feel like answering them. I know people do it good naturedly but when I receive such messages without any sincerity in them, I question why they waste their time doing it. I have to waste my time replying with the same meaningless greetings,” Lee said.
Both Lee and Park understand people can't send long and heartfelt messages to everyone so they recommend trying to send greetings only to close friends.
According to a survey conducted by local recruiting website Job Korea on 799 men and women, one out of three said they prefer sending New Year greeting texts from their mobile phones.
However, about 24 percent of them also said they hated receiving messages that had been copied and pasted to many recipients.
Over 13 percent picked sending New Year greetings in a group chat to multiple recipients as one of the worst ways.
Some 9.8 percent of the respondents said they didn't like people sending messages that start with well-wishing remarks but end with a preachy message, while 9.5 percent refused to receive images containing New Year phrases but lacking a personal message.
“I know people are busy and they don't have time to write everyone an earnest letter wishing them a happy New Year. At the same time, people don't want to miss anybody and want to send greetings to everyone they know,” Park said. “However, I think it is better to send nothing rather than sending empty messages. People can feel that they are not well-treated or they are just one of many others.”
“Just take a minute to write down your colleague or friend's name in the text. Mentioning a little bit of a story you shared with the person you are sending the message to can make their day,” Lee added.