Email Addiction Runs Rampant

Rollie Hawk writes "Are you addicted to email? According to the Opinion Research Corporation, the odds are pretty good that you are. Their study of 4,012 adults in the twenty largest U.S. cities found that 41% of respondents start the day by checking their email. On the average, respondents admitted to checking their email five times a day. Respondents also mentioned email features they wish were available. Examples included the ability to retract unread messages (45%) and a way to track the forwarding of their own email (43%). Just how addicted are the email-dependent among us? So heavily that one quarter of respondents won't go more than two or three days without it. Of course, by those standards, most Americans must be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well."

Comments

Addicted?

[chjones]

These results, as far as I can tell, have little if anything to do with "addiction". Do people check their email often? Yup. Do they do so to the detriment of other activities? Who knows?

How about this as an interesting survey:

• Do you check your email when you know you're supposed to be doing other things? (Yeah, most people would answer this one positively.)
• Have you ever tried to cut back on how often you check your email? (Why?)
• Do you get annoyed when others suggest you check your email too much?
• Do you ever feel guilty about checking your email?
• Do you ever need an eye-opener, checking your email first thing in the morning? (Okay, this one's covered.)
• And the all important: have you ever willingly had sex with someone so that they would allow you to check your email?

Unless the answers to several of those questions are "yes", I'd have a little trouble suggesting someone's addicted....