Don't leave a voice message. Send an email

Email is actually a more intimate way to reach out to someone, especially if they're a millennial, than leaving a voice message, a new study found.

Before now, the opposite was believed to be true.

But the new research found email allows the sender to modify their message and think more deeply about its composition than a voice message that's recorded in one take.

"When writing romantic emails, senders consciously or subconsciously added more positive content to their messages, perhaps to compensate for the medium's inability to convey vocal tone," wrote California State University, Sacramento, Management Information Systems Professor Taylor M. Wells and Alan R. Dennis, the John T. Chambers Chair of Internet Systems at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business.

Their study, "To Email or Not to Email: The Impact of Media on Psychophysiological Responses and Emotional Content in Utilitarian and Romantic Communication," found email messages induce a stronger psychophysiological response in recipients no matter the circumstances they're being sent, be it for romance or business.

The two got the idea for the study while they were doing research on how technology is used in business communication and decision-making.

"This study challenges the idea that email shouldn't be used for the communication of emotion and shows that people physically respond differently when using different technologies to communicate," Wells said.

The new study has been accepted for publication in Computers in Human Behavior.