I love receiving email from friends and family. Nice to see your inbox full of neat things that are waiting with bated breath to be opened and read. Sometimes when I am at work and I get soooooooooooooooooo bored with my caseload I love receiving mail from my friends and family just to break the monotony of the day. Daily rants or swapping ideas are a wonderful way to do away with some of the usual doldrums. I highly recommend this as a good form of 'net therapy.
However...it CAN be abused. I found this article and wanted to share:
The Email Addict's Lament
Whether you can control your relationship with your inbox is another matter. Here are the laments of the email addicted around the world.
From Australia: "If you learn of a cure, please pass it on. I am a journalist, and I now find I am not able to complete more than two or three paragraphs of a story without swapping from Word to Outlook Express to check for messages... Thanks for the chance to get that off my chest."
From Malaysia: "I'm an email addict. I check the first thing b4 brushing my teeth, because I work from my bedroom."
From the U.K.: "I spend way too much time on it. I check first thing; then I check all the way through the day. [It's] crazy, not good for productivity. Also I hardly ever use the post anymore."
From the U.S.: "Don't use my name, but I know exactly how you feel! Sometimes I have to turn off my Outlook just to get things done without interruption."
"I CHECK MY EMAIL EVERY 3-5 MINUTES; I AM ADDICTED TO MY EMAIL."
"I'm finally ready to admit I have a problem. At a trade show recently, I awoke in the middle of the night, unable to get my laptop 'dial-up' connected to the hotel [phone system]. I found myself in a 24-hour hotel business center looking for a 'fix.'"
"I have been strung out on checking my email every minute for 7 years. The issue for me comes in when I get home and have to check personal email. YICK! Then I feel that my life is fading away."
Emailaholics Anonymous
Also from Australia: "Hi, my name is John... and I'm addicted to email. When you're expecting an important message from a client, the little envelope pops up, and you rush to see what it is. More often than not, it is a JPEG of a giant cat that a friend has sent you... It's an exciting time to be on this earth. I love it!"
From the Netherlands: "Since I work for an Internet company, I believe speed is a major factor. I always like people to respond fast. It's a sign of using mail the right way. That is why I try to respond as fast as I can, and, therefore, I have become an addict."
From the U.S.: "I used to be addicted to email. Now I IM [instant message]. Some would call it transference of attention/obsession, but I do check email less often!"
"You're not alone. I've actually been thinking about starting EA [emailaholics anonymous], complete with a 12-step program to curb this digital addiction -- but I've just been too darn busy reading all my emails!" This reader goes on to say that she checks seven different email addresses throughout the day: one each for Excite, iWon, EarthLink, and Hotmail and three for Yahoo. Each has a purpose (work, e-newsletters, friends and family, etc.).
Is There a Cure?
Surprisingly, I found few online resources specifically aimed at email addiction. One is About.com's email addiction page. Two others are the Center for On-Line Addiction and an addiction resource site. I also found an online therapy site at which you can get help for Internet addiction through email consultation. (That's supposed to be a joke.)
Several readers offered practical tips for setting up folders in Outlook to solve this problem. But the latest software features cannot cure email addiction.
As one reader put it: "As for controlling the addiction, the first step, and the one that I fail, is wanting to. After that it is easy. Just set up your software to only check email every 15 minutes or half hour. Mine is set on every minute."
Jared Spool, Web usability expert and principal of User Interface Engineering, offers a useful perspective: "Email addiction is an old problem," he said. "People crave social interaction. It's like standing around the water cooler all day... Unfortunately, with email it looks like you're sitting at your computer working."
But, he added, "there are tricks... to this. If you feel you are losing productivity, you have to, in essence, close your office door. Only check email at certain times of the day. Turn off the ping."
Whether you can control your relationship with your inbox is another matter. Here are the laments of the email addicted around the world.
From Australia: "If you learn of a cure, please pass it on. I am a journalist, and I now find I am not able to complete more than two or three paragraphs of a story without swapping from Word to Outlook Express to check for messages... Thanks for the chance to get that off my chest."
From Malaysia: "I'm an email addict. I check the first thing b4 brushing my teeth, because I work from my bedroom."
From the U.K.: "I spend way too much time on it. I check first thing; then I check all the way through the day. [It's] crazy, not good for productivity. Also I hardly ever use the post anymore."
From the U.S.: "Don't use my name, but I know exactly how you feel! Sometimes I have to turn off my Outlook just to get things done without interruption."
"I CHECK MY EMAIL EVERY 3-5 MINUTES; I AM ADDICTED TO MY EMAIL."
"I'm finally ready to admit I have a problem. At a trade show recently, I awoke in the middle of the night, unable to get my laptop 'dial-up' connected to the hotel [phone system]. I found myself in a 24-hour hotel business center looking for a 'fix.'"
"I have been strung out on checking my email every minute for 7 years. The issue for me comes in when I get home and have to check personal email. YICK! Then I feel that my life is fading away."
Emailaholics Anonymous
Also from Australia: "Hi, my name is John... and I'm addicted to email. When you're expecting an important message from a client, the little envelope pops up, and you rush to see what it is. More often than not, it is a JPEG of a giant cat that a friend has sent you... It's an exciting time to be on this earth. I love it!"
From the Netherlands: "Since I work for an Internet company, I believe speed is a major factor. I always like people to respond fast. It's a sign of using mail the right way. That is why I try to respond as fast as I can, and, therefore, I have become an addict."
From the U.S.: "I used to be addicted to email. Now I IM [instant message]. Some would call it transference of attention/obsession, but I do check email less often!"
"You're not alone. I've actually been thinking about starting EA [emailaholics anonymous], complete with a 12-step program to curb this digital addiction -- but I've just been too darn busy reading all my emails!" This reader goes on to say that she checks seven different email addresses throughout the day: one each for Excite, iWon, EarthLink, and Hotmail and three for Yahoo. Each has a purpose (work, e-newsletters, friends and family, etc.).
Is There a Cure?
Surprisingly, I found few online resources specifically aimed at email addiction. One is About.com's email addiction page. Two others are the Center for On-Line Addiction and an addiction resource site. I also found an online therapy site at which you can get help for Internet addiction through email consultation. (That's supposed to be a joke.)
Several readers offered practical tips for setting up folders in Outlook to solve this problem. But the latest software features cannot cure email addiction.
As one reader put it: "As for controlling the addiction, the first step, and the one that I fail, is wanting to. After that it is easy. Just set up your software to only check email every 15 minutes or half hour. Mine is set on every minute."
Jared Spool, Web usability expert and principal of User Interface Engineering, offers a useful perspective: "Email addiction is an old problem," he said. "People crave social interaction. It's like standing around the water cooler all day... Unfortunately, with email it looks like you're sitting at your computer working."
But, he added, "there are tricks... to this. If you feel you are losing productivity, you have to, in essence, close your office door. Only check email at certain times of the day. Turn off the ping."
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