Gmail offers upto thirty seconds of ‘Undo send’ and WhatsApp offers upto one hour to ‘Delete for everyone’.
Why do they provide this feature?
A mistaken text/email to the wrong person at the wrong time? Probably yes.
But that is narrow. The function of communication technologies is to change the culture. Make the written or spoken word more effective than it was before its advent. There is one question that we are not asking ourselves as often as we should.
Technologies are pointing and nudging us to ask ourselves: How does it sound?
If the ‘sent’ words sound blaming, disrespectful, needy, cribbing, contempful, or just out of context, we have a few seconds to change our mind and rephrase them. We have this choice every single time we hit ‘send’. But how often do we change our mind?
If it sounds empathetic, authentic, understanding, concernful, accommodating, self-less or zealous, we would no longer require any communication classes.
Hit the ‘Undo send’ as many times as you feel like.
Practice it enough that you can make do without that feature for the rest of your life.