It’s an idle Tuesday. You’re at work, as per usual, when you look down and see a text message from a close friend. It reads: “Are you in the right headspace to receive information that could possibly hurt you?”

How do you respond?

At a guess, your mind probably spirals – is someone cheating? Or worse, dying? Have you done something wrong? Is the world – or yours, at least – about to implode?

Blame negative bias, but most of us tend to assume the worst when faced with such emotionally charged ambiguity. So is it just better to rip the band-aid right off?

Yet, to play devil’s advocate here for a second, maybe it is helpful to preface bad news with some sort of warning, rather than blindsiding the recipient?

Such is the predicament raised by Yana Birt in a now-viral tweet, which read: “I just want to say, a lot of y’all dump information on your friends at the wrong time without their consent. If you know it’s something that could hurt them, ask permission before you decide to be messy. Please.”

How to break bad news: “Are you in the right headspace to receive information that could possibly hurt you?”