By Lisa DiCarlucci

Those who find themselves inebriated after a week of hard work can now maintain their inhibitions; technologically, at least.

Thanks to Gmail’s newest experimental feature, “Mail Goggles,” victims of drunken e-mail confessionals can rest easy. Users can turn on a feature in their Google e-mail accounts so that between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. on weekend nights, those who wish to successfully send an e-mail must complete a series of simple math problems.

Google hopes the feature will prevent drunk e-mailing: One engineer’s personal experience with drunk e-mailing and blogging sparked the idea for Mail Goggles.

“Sometimes I send messages I shouldn’t send,” Jon Parlow, a Google engineer, wrote on Gmail’s blog on Oct. 6. “Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night e-mail to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together.”

Though Mail Goggles is still in trials, Gmail allows users to access it under the “Labs” settings. Gmail Labs is area where users can enable trial features and send feedback to Google engineers.

“Gmail can’t always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret…but we’re launching a new feature which may help,” Parlow added.

Students were divided over whether such a preventive measure was a good idea.

“I think that it’s sad that society has progressed to a level where our e-mailing needs to be monitored. If you can’t stop e-mailing your ex-girlfriend at four o’clock in the morning, that’s your problem,” said senior film major Staci Langdon. “Google should not have to invent something to make you stop.”

Considering the use of social networking as the primary means of communication amongst today’s youth, perhaps this feature is more practical than it is ridiculous, if used by Facebook and other social networking sites, in addition to Gmail.

Sophomore global studies major Alyssa Coco responded positively to this suggestion, saying, “It would be a good idea for Facebook because I think people tend to do things on Facebook when they are drunk that they wouldn’t normally do.”

Junior information-technology major Nick Chehames agreed, saying that he “would be more inclined to send a drunk Facebook message than a drunk e-mail,” but added that “no one takes Facebook seriously.”

The fact that people are so inclined to use the Internet when under the influence says a lot about how comfortable society has become with informal and impersonal communication. While a few students were scared to think that such a feature was necessary as opposed to good, old-fashioned self-control, most of those asked thought that it would not only be a good idea but would also be very useful.

“Drunk Facebooking does happen,” said senior film major Tim McGroarty. “If this feature existed it could prevent a lot of awkwardness.”