The Department of Linguistic Anxieties is pleased to welcome Dr. Priya Sharma, who joins the faculty as Assistant Professor of Digital Communication Stress.
Dr. Sharma completed her doctorate at Cambridge, where her dissertation examined the psychological aftermath of reply-all email incidents. Her research found that accidental reply-all events create measurable anxiety responses lasting an average of 3.2 days, with 12% of subjects reporting persistent rumination beyond one week.
"The reply-all catastrophe is uniquely modern," Dr. Sharma explained. "Pre-email, embarrassing oneself before hundreds of colleagues simultaneously required considerable effort. Now it requires a single misclick. The psyche has not adapted."
At Sagacity, Dr. Sharma will expand her research to encompass the broader category of digital communication paralysis—the phenomenon of freezing when confronted with seemingly simple choices in professional messaging.
Her current projects include:
- A taxonomy of "Hi" versus "Hello" decision factors
- The anxiety gradient from "Let me know" to "Please advise"
- Recovery strategies following autocorrect failures in professional contexts
- The social cost of incorrect emoji deployment
"Dr. Sharma brings methodological rigor to questions we've all experienced but rarely articulate," said Department Chair Dr. Constance Weatherby. "Her work on 'greeting paralysis' alone fills a significant gap in our understanding of workplace communication stress."
Dr. Sharma will teach Introduction to Digital Anxiety in the spring semester. Office hours are by appointment.