Gmail dosnt wat yu tosned druk emals

37 + 19 = ?

The calculation may not seem that hard now, but try doing it while drunk.

That's the goal of Google Mail Goggles, a new feature for Gmail that requires users to complete a series of simple math problems before sending an e-mail late on weekend nights.

"Mail Goggles is the latest, admittedly tongue-in-cheek, feature we've introduced in Gmail Labs," a Google spokesperson wrote in an e-mail.

The opt-in feature was released earlier this month from Google labs, which a spokesperson for the company identified as "a public testing ground for experimental Gmail features that may not be quite ready for prime-time."

Many students find the new feature a different kind of sober friend - but a welcome one.

Wharton and Nursing sophomore Susanna Shuman, for example, recounted receiving a "very mean drunk e-mail" she wishes the new feature had been able to prevent.

Some students say the new feature would be useful for forms of communication other than e-mail.

College sophomore Matt Amalfitano said he has not sent e-mails while drunk but wishes there were some similar type of preventative measure for his personal communication vice, BlackBerry Messenger.

He added that text messages and BBM's, not e-mail, are the more "characteristic drunken forms of communication."

Shuman disagreed, calling drunk BBMs "useful."

It makes nights more "cohesive," said College sophomore Mike Winston. "Sometimes I'll look back at [texts and BBM's sent while drunk] and say, 'Oh, that's how I ended up there.'"

But e-mails while drunk are a different story.

Amalfitano, a member of the Undergraduate Assembly, said he would feel terrible if he inadvertently e-mailed the body's listserv while drunk.

Shuman said the one e-mail she ever sent while drunk was to a listserv of a group she was no longer a member of.

"I'm very loving when I'm drunk, so I just like to spread the love," she said.

College sophomore Jenna Katz was also unsure that a few simple arithmetic problems would be able to prevent her from sending something regrettable.

"I feel like my math would still be intact," she said.

And if students are sending e-mails from their computers, they probably have calculators nearby, said Wharton sophomore Daniel Green.

Ultimately, though, students like Engineering senior Mike Gottlieb say Goggles is an amusing, but not necessarily practical, feature. He added that he thinks the feature should remain optional.

Some, like College junior Elise Miller, don't think there should be any inhibitors to drunk communication.

She said that people who text drunk "make the choice to be drunk" and need to accept the consequences of their actions.

Besides, as Green pointed out, if someone is sending an e-mail while drunk, it is clearly about something they had thought about before, "so maybe it's not such a bad thing."

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