Google's "Goggles" Will Protect You from Yourself

By Anastacia Mott Austin

We’ve probably all done it, sent an email we regretted later.

The olden-days equivalent was called "drunk-dialing," and it refers to the tendency to get "beer goggles" after a few too many adult beverages and make bold and foolish choices, like dialing up your ex and begging to get back together, or telling off the boss once and for all.

Now with instant text-messaging and email, the new version of the situation involves sending emails you later really wish you hadn’t.

But a new feature from Gmail might just save you from yourself. Dubbed Mail Goggles (in reference to those special beer goggles), the feature can be enabled to automatically switch on during vulnerable times, like late at night or on the weekends.

After hitting "send" on any given email during those times, the program will then ask you to solve a few simple math questions. If you can answer them, great! Mail Goggles will then assume you’re of sober mind and have thought your decision through. If you can’t answer questions like "11 x 2," or "37 + 19," it will decide for you that you are too sloshed, and you won’t be able to send the email.

Those who work in fields with easy and instant access to email say the feature may also help tired, frustrated workers by preventing them from exhibiting "web rage," or the tendency to fire off vindictive emails at the end of a long day. If that’s the case, you can program your Mail Goggles to come on at say, 4:00 in the afternoon. It’s adaptable to the user. While those users will likely be able to easily answer the math questions, the feature could serve as a short reality check to take the time to reconsider sending the email.

The math questions can be set at several different difficulty levels, from the very simple to the challenging. In fact, some folks might have trouble answering the timed questions on the more difficult levels even while sober.

Gmail engineer and creator of the new feature John Perlow writes on his Google blog about why he decided to develop the program. "Sometimes I send messages I shouldn't send," writes Perlow. "Like the time I told a girl I had a crush on her by text message. Or the time I sent that late-night e-mail to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together."

If you try to send an email during the hours you’ve enabled Mail Goggles, a box pops up that tells you, "It's that time of day. Gmail aims to help you in many ways. Are you sure you want to send this? Answer some simple math problems to verify."

If you’re able to answer the questions, the box goes away and you can send as many emails out as you wish. If, however, you get stumped, it will then tell you, "Water and bed for you. Or try again," and you can try again at the questions.

While the idea has consumer appeal, you have to think that someone could potentially be too drunk to answer the math questions but still savvy enough to disable the Mail Goggles. It wouldn’t be that hard. On the other hand, answering "11 x 2" shouldn’t be a nail-biter either.

To try this new feature out, Gmail users should go to the "settings" page in Gmail, then click on "Labs," and then enable Mail Goggles, save changes, and go to the "general" section to make any changes in times, etc. The default time periods are late at night and during weekend hours.

If enabling your Mail Goggles proves too difficult, well, maybe you shouldn’t send that next email.