Slashdot Mirror
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."
it's pretty frightening when you can google up a 12-step recovery program for sex addiction, substitute the word "sex" for "email" and it still kind of works.
my favorite steps:
1. Admitted we were powerless over [what ever your affliction] and that our lives were unmanageable
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
8. Made a list of persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
good god. where to begin?
I think i just got an email.. see ya! :)
... if reading my email every morning is an addiction, what's the difference between "addiction" and "daily routine" ?
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
I have to admit, I check my email a ton. But all I have to do is glance over at the shell window with mutt running, and I'm off.
Also, in my world, email brings me great things. Sex, money, and geekery. Often, an email from the right person means free beer!
Pretty Pictures!
Anyone else wonder why this is in the Hardware section?
I may check my email 5 times a day, but I check Slashdot 20 or 30 times a day.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Lightweights!
We are just becoming more and more integrated with the computer half of ourselves. Sure the interface between fleshy bits and the computer hardware needs imrpovement. But I have been thinking about this and whether or not I am addicted lately. Ever get that feeling of irrational rage or anger or just plain frustration when someone else uses your laptop. It is because for some of us the laptop is an extension of our brain and we instinctively protect it. Just like I instinctively protect my email communication by denying I am addicted.
"When no-one around you understands start your own revolution and cut out the middle man"
That's just plain stupid. Just because e-mail has become a social necessity (like checking your answering machine) doesn't mean you're ADDICTED.
E-mail is a form of communication, I use it to talk with my e-friends. We live in a global society now.
(On the other hand, if you check your e-mail because you're feeling lonely, then you're not addicted to e-mail. You just need real-life friends)
I suppose I make up for 4-500 people who don't check it at all then...
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
I don't check my email obsessively...I have my Sidekick do it for me.
All my email is forwarded to my Sidekick, so I can know about email the instant it arrives.
Don't be like me.
^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I'm taking an online course, and had to convince the professor to let us email in our assignments, as opposed to sending them in using snail mail.
A little more widespread addiction to email can't be all bad, I think.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Because it gets me away from talking face to face or over the phone to people I can't stand.
Does answering your telephone make you a phone addict?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I also check my voicemail every day when I get home from work, and at any other time that I think I may have a phone call.
I also check my physical mail box every day, just to see how much less money I'm going to have after I do bills.
I look in the fridge for something to eat at least 5-8 times a day.
I pee at least twice, often times around 3 times a day.
Until these people start going into withdrawal when they stop checking their email, don't call it addiction. I've gone weeks without checking my email, after having checked it about 8 times + a day for the year or two preceding that. I didn't even give it a second thought.
The real headline is that "The Opinion Research Corporation is staffed by a pack of retarded monkeys. The CEO expressed optimism that their next release will be more along the lines of Hamlet than a total pile of bullshit. High School students everywhere were known to ask 'What's the difference?'".
Since when has doing something a lot that needs doing a lot to be useful meant you're addicted? If you don't check your email frequently you might as well use snail mail - one of the biggest benefits of email over snail mail is speed.
not as much as I am addicted to food, clothing and shelter
Yeah. To paraphase.
Slashdot user: "Hi, I'm Pat. And I'm an email addict".
Group: "Email? Email's not an addiction. I used to suck dick for coke. Now that's an addiction. You ever suck dick for email?"
Slashdot user: "Well" (blushes) "Now that I think about it... I suppose that yes... yes I have".
The Internet is generally stupid
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:
Unless the answers to several of those questions are "yes", I'd have a little trouble suggesting someone's addicted....
Christian Jones
Medicine. Mathematics. Mediocrity.
An "email this" link on an article about how addicted we are to email. Nice.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
I completely agree with these findings in regards to frequency. But I sure hope these users know what they are asking for with those 'reverting sent emails and email tracking' features.
Checking your email at the start of your day is no different than checking your voice messages or notes left on your desk - this really is not all that surprising. And besides myself having over 32,000 emails stored and composing/replying what seems like every other minute, most of the other people I correspond with reply quickly, which would indicate that they check their email quite often. And I have worked at companies where email is their life, some people have emails dating back to 1997!
'retract unread messages' is funny - you send it, oops! I want it back! The could only happen on an enclosed system, unfortunately. But it is probably a good thing, wouldn't want people to be able to manipulate your inbox that way. I think a trailing header 'cookie' (dare I say UID 'ducks') could be achieved so you would know where your email ends up, how many times and to whom - but it would take a while for all email systems to integrate that feature.
What is amazing to me by this study, is that the features these users want are arguably gross invasions of privacy.
do you have shinyfeet?
and I'm addicted to checking my e-mail. The article suggests ways to avoid your email compulsion.. ... is this some kind of joke?
"Resolve not to check e-mail after a certain hour of the night, and respect the curfew."
"Go without e-mail one day per week."
What is so bad about checking your e-mail? Are they going to start an Emailers Anonymous group? Where can I join?
Beat the computer, program your life.
How many people would be checking their email five times a day if we had something (in our house for example) that notified us (by, oh, say a ringing sound) when we had a new message? Or maybe a blinking light? Sound familiar?
People only check their email that often because they don't have any other way of knowing whether or not they've got new mail. Tie email notification in with a distinct telephone ring sound, and you'll see the # of times people check their email drop considerably. Crack down on spammers and then the number of emails an individual gets will drop, also reducing "false" notifications.
Or we could just use this time and money on research that's actually useful. As http://www.fark.com/ sometimes says 'Still no cure for cancer.'
And they said zombies weren't real!
Addiction is a very specific term that has, like much else, been co-opted by people who want it to mean something else. From a psychological or physiological standpoint it means that, if you don't get the substance, you feel withdrawal symptoms, and you need increasing doses of the substance in order to keep the withdrawal symptoms away.
So, technically, most people are not addicted. They just really like email, and find it useful. However, from the way most people understand addiction, well, I suppose they're addicted. It just that there's nothing wrong with the new type of addiction. It's clinical addiction that causes problems.
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
my grandmother was Dutch
Yes! Evil rules! Good can suck it! Suck it, good!
Email has become such a ubiquitous means of communication, I'm not sure the its frequent use can be termed an "addiction". Would we say that someone is addicted to the phone because they either call or answer it 5 times a day? I'd posit that it's used a lot simply because it's an effective way to communicate.
Looks like I'm also addicted to brushing my teeth and eating breakfast, based on that criteria.
"Of course, by those standards, most Americans must be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well."
:(
So you're telling me that the average American has sex 5 times a day? Well, that makes me feel a lot better.
"Examples included the ability to retract unread messages"
Are you saying that men want the ability to "retract" unborn babies? Hmmm, you might be on to something there.
"a way to track the forwarding of their own email"
A way to find out who else your SO is sleeping with?
Since I have customers (and coworkers) all over the globe, sometimes working radically different hours than I do, I've found that it's often better to toss an e-mail to some people than to attempt to contact them by other means.
:-) Sometimes it's self-defense.
We also get a lot of announcements, problem reports, status messages, and other things sent via e-mail at my current workplace.
Because of this, by e-mail client checks for new mail every five minutes. And depending on the type of message, sometimes that's too long a period of time.
Not all e-mail usage is strictly by choice.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
They're addicted because they check E-mail 5 times a day? Oh my God! I eat food 5 times a day some times too! I must be addicted to food! And I read more than that! I'm addicted to reading! Not to mention I talk, answer the phone, breathe, move... oh my God! I'm addicted to everything!
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
If you use webmail, checking involves a good bit of effort and attention on your part. But if you use a normal client, you have it running in the background checking on your behalf periodically and notifying you when mail arrives. Does the fact that my computer checks mail several hundred times a day make me an addict, or does it mean that whoever designed this survey thinks that "everyone uses webmail these days"?
"Addiction" sounds a little strong to me. I check my email all the time -- I keep Gmail open at work all day long, with thunderbird open in the background collecting my work emails. I like being in touch. At weekends, I'll check my email a couple of times per day. Basically, if I have internet access, I check it. But am I addicted? Do I start to sweat and shake if I don't check it? No. Do I get abusive if I don't check it? No. Do I feel severe anxiety if I don't check it? No.
I'm not a psychologist, but I think professionals will tell you there's a big difference between being addicted and just liking to do something a lot!
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aaddiction
Checking your email isn't an addiction unless you have develop physical or mental dependence on it. I've heard people refer to themselves as being addicted to email, but as a joke. For anyone to claim that people who check their email regularly are "addicted" is silly. Unless your desire to read your email causes you to do (or not do) something that causes you or others harm, it's certainly not an addiction, anymore than reading the newspaper is.
rooooar
how many people are constantly checking their email as an escape from their tedious or stressful job environments.
I'm also addicted to putting on clothes, showering, brushing my teeth, and scratching my balls. I won't go 3 days without doing any of those.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
I too am addicted to email! I do it constantly and am even notified if emails come in! I'm also, clearly, addicted to the following:
* Using restroom
* Saving, compiling, and testing incremental changes to code base
* Checking to see if additional bugs have been assigned to me
* Walking my dogs
* Eating
* Listening to "Morning Edition"
* Checking weather before walking to my car
I need government sponsored action and possibly a large lawsuit!
Never confuse volume with power.
Rollie Hawk writes "41% of respondents start the day by checking their email. On the average, respondents admitted to checking their email five times a day. 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 sex as well."
This raises the important questions: Does Rollie's girlfriend have a sister, and if so, may I have her phone number?
-Peter
U.S. residents are so hooked on the telephone that some use the telephone in the bathroom, in church and while driving, a new survey sponsored by America Online Inc. has found.
The average telephone user in the U.S. has two or three phones and spends about an hour every day using them, according to the survey, conducted by Opinion Research Corp.
Telephone dependency is so strong for 41% of survey respondents that they make telephone calls right after getting out of bed in the morning. The average user uses the telephone five times a day, according to the survey, which polled 4,012 respondents at least 18 years old in the 20 largest U.S. cities.
About a fourth of respondents acknowledged being so addicted to the telephone that they can't go more than two or three days without using the telephone. That includes vacations, during which 60% of respondents admitted using the telephone.
Unsurprisingly, all that telephone activity sometimes leads to regrets. Almost half of respondents -- 45% -- indicated they would like to have the ability to take back what they've said over the telephone.
There is also some attachment anxiety to phone calls. A significant portion of respondents -- 43% -- would like to be able to track where their gossip get forwarded.
The areas in which it's most likely to find telephone junkies are, in descending order: Miami/Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York and Houston.
For those interested in curbing their telephone compulsion, here are some suggestions:
Resolve not to use the telephone after a certain hour of the night, and respect the curfew.
Close the loop on an ongoing telephone discussion by picking up a pen and writing to the other person.
Consider how many phone calls you make.
Act on every phone message you receive by deleting it, forwarding it, responding to it or filing it.
Go without the telephone one day per week.
Yqy...K ecp'v dgnkgxg aqw cevwcnna vqqm vjg vkog vq vtcpuncvg oa uki. Kh aqw vjkpm vjku ku tkfkewnqwu, tgcf oa dkq.
You don't say! I have a horrible breakfast, lunch, and dinner addiction. I also check my e-mail approximately 480 times a day (once a minute every minute).
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
If I can get sex even just half as often as I check my email, I shall be a happy man.
Thanks to my Treo, I get my corporate email delivered in near realtime via GoodLink and my personal email delivered every 15 minutes via ChatterEmail (3 IMAP, 2 POP).
:)
The really scary thing are holiday weekends. The emails slow down and I find myself sending myself test emails just to make sure my mail server didn't go down. Talk about a dependency... my email addiction is worse than my crack addiction or my PSP addiction.
I also eat breakfast, play with my dog, and read the newspaper every morning. Addiction is not the same as "routine".
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Yeah, I was about to say, what about those damned FOOD and WATER addictions?
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
I do computer consulting for a living and the one thing I've come to detest is email. The sound of the word even sets my teeth on edge. It's the first thing customers ask about when I get their computers back to them.
"Did you get all my eeeeemail???" "Is my eeeeemail still there?" "You aren't erasing my eeeeemail, are you?"
My partner and I are indebted to these people and their addiction, but it has become the bane of our existence. Luckily, we're mostly a Mac OS X shop and it's easy to back up and restore their stuff if they use Apple Mail. I've also just learned how to convert Windows mailboxes to Apple format, so it'll be easier to avoid that whine: "Can you transfer my eeeeemail?!"
Feh!
Of course, by those standards, most Americans must be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well.
What is this "sex" thing you speak of? I can find no reference to it in any of my emails.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Yeah, I did wonder, and scanned down the post looking for what physical traits "e-mail" might have that would either encourage an addiction (clicks like an addicted mouse on a wheel?) or break as a result of an addiction (smoking servers?). Both a total reach, I know. And nothin', nada.
Take a look at the editor who put this up, though. Whatever the original poster chose on the way in, it's the editor who needs to figure out how things fit together. Taco, Taco, Taco.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
At the company I work for we use email as a way to handle support requests. We use Groupwise as our email system and have a folder full of emails to keep track of support requests. I must check that box 20-25 times a day or more to see how current SR are doing and which ones need my attention.
On a side note our Groupwise server alos has the ability to retract unread emails. It has saved me from having a partner/manager read some un-tactful emails. I guess you could say go Novell??? :)~
--------------
I had a nightmare and in it there was all these 1's and 0's floating around. I even think I seen a 2.
Of course, by those standards, most Americans must be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well."
To nitpick for a second, arent the first two well...essential to life? Wouldn't necessarily call that an addiction....
And whats with the 'Americans' snark? Last time I checked the rest of the world works and has sex too, hell Americans rank lower in industrialized nationals among sexual activity!
Forget all the e-mail addiction. What about all those out there addicted to /.
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
...and I have a few thoughts on it... ...wait...gotta check my e-mail. Be right back.
IronChefMorimoto
I remember when I would check my email many times per day. I now have all my emails forwarded to my hotmail account and have them SMS'd to my cell phone. This saves lots of time on my part, and I get INSTANT notifications on when my emails come in! It's great
This is bad. What is becoming of the American citizenry? It is already sad to see the Vehicular addicts each morning, and now this? Yes, Vehicular Addicts. Those people who must satiate their addiction to vehicles by driving one each day. The worst of them actually 'shoot up' by driving first thing each morning, sometimes even before coffee (double addiction jeapordy there my friends!)! It is sad to see people being enslaved by their cars, and now even by email. What a sad sad people we have become. We need to appoint a presidential commission to combat these addictions before lest consume our society!
I think in twenty years people will look back on those that tried to flag the acceptance and inclusion of technologies into our lives as 'addictions', will scoff and use the surnames of those who did the calling as jokes in themselves.
"Rollie Hawk writes "Are you addicted to email?
Are you a 'Rollie' Head too? Shall we check you into the clinic now? Ha Ha Ha!
In Korea, only old people check their email five times a day.
Saying people are "addicted" to email because they check it 3-5 times a day is like saying people are "addicted" to the phone because they choose to answer it every time it rings. Or for that matter, checking your snail-mail box once a day (you ADDICT!). Oh, I check my wristwatch a few times a day to see what time it is - does this make me a TIME addict?
I work for an ISP my whole day is spent reading email. That's how I interact with tech support / sales / the rest of the company.
:-P
They know better then to call the engineers, we hate that.
Rookie. :P
I'll bet a lot of businesspeople are also addicted to using ballpoint pens, sticky notes, and pads of paper, and won't go more than a few days without any of those.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
I'm just lonely nad bored....is that such a bad thing?
If you're sitting at a workstation all day and your mail server uses IMAP with IDLE support, I guess that means you're constantly checking your email...
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
I've had e-mail accounts since the late 80s. Back then, you rarely received anything, but when you did, it was usually worth reading.
These days, I've gotten to the point where I have little use for e-mail.
99% of the non-spam (and of course, 100% of the spam) is completely useless.
The net result is that if you send me an e-mail these days, you have to call me up to tell me you sent it so that I'll check the e-mail box.
While at work, outlook never closes and I have notifications on my screen every time a new email comes in which is pretty often. It's a part of my job. When I leave my desk my blackberry comes with me so I can see any email that I'm missing while I'm not there... but am I addicted? I'd say no. I just do my job. When 5:00 rolls around I check my home email sometime after dinner and don't really touch the computer after that. I think those of us that are forced to do it as part of our daily routine in fact don't even like email.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
Every day that I don't have to check my email is a blessing.
It's not an addiction if you're expecting something vital or important. I keep Outlook running all the time at work, and it checks my Email every five minutes. Thats because part of my job is communicating with my coworkers, and email is one of the ways we do it.
It's an addiction if you check your email obsessively, even though you know there's not anything vital in there. More spam, email from some joke list you signed up for, some piece of crap about a boy in England who has cancer and wants postcards... nothing even remotely important, but still you look. And you'll look again in 20 minutes, just in case.
Think of it as obessively checking your answering machine for new messages, even though the little light isn't blinking.
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
If that's really the case then it sounds like Microsoft will have its work cut out for them in selling DRM to these people, since that's the only reliable way a control-freak can track & control "his" email once it's on someone elses machine.
Web-bug tracking images and return receipts aren't evil enough?
Power to the Peaceful
Or look for the words "$ex", "pron" and "p0rn"...
If I knew then what I knew now, would I still feel this old?
Amature
I keep a browser window with slashdot open for 8 hours every day, and idly mouse 'up-down' to reload the page every few minutes.
My company requires me to read my email at least 5 times a day. You think I have a lawsuit?
My other car is a Popemobile
I had a hotmail account and there was no way to delete it.
The only way for the account to be removed was if it was inactive for three months.
I tried many times to just stop logging in and checking my mail, but i always caved in and looked "just in case someone had sent something important".
I was on track to never being able to deactivate that account.
The maximum number of characters in the password was 20 characters.
What I ended up doing was typing in 20 random characters, without looking, in notepad, then changed my password to that using copy/paste so I effectively locked myself out of the account. I needed the copy/paste so I could type in the new password twice.
That was what finally worked for me.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
When my email arrives, I automatically receive an audible notification on my cellphone and can check the message right from the phone. So it's essentially beeing fed to me 'intravenously' so to speak. Does that make an addict of me?
--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/
I remember wy back in 1995 when work got email and how it changed everything. Email saps up at least the first 2 hours of the day.
Also, people like me use email for business communication. We need to check it frequently to make sure the info we have been waiting for hasnt arrived. (I made client make make sounds so I dont have to look).
What I am afraid of is how much I am addicted to blogs like Slashdot.com. For myself, reading blogs is the biggest time waster.
People like to be connected to each other. I'm not sure you can qualify a form of human contact as addiction.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Used to use email as main form of communication.
Now usenet is mostly dead except for some very specialized newsgroups, and use of SMTP for non-commercial or work-related purposes is too awkward thanks to the sheer volumes of crap.
Spammers killed news and mail for me, I never hid my email address and never will, that's THE POINT of being reachable via email. Thank god most IRC networks still are fine and SMS costs money per message.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
Most Americans cannot go one day without checking their postal mail!!
In fact, in a recent study conducted by Nugneant Industries, over 100% of Americans witnessed the sight of a motorcar! When asked if they could possibly live life for three days without looking at a motorcar, they were most likely to answer "no", or offer a sarcastic wisecrack in its stead! America is addicted to the sight of wheeled machinery!
Most Americans ANSWER THEIR TELEPHONE WHEN IT RINGS!!! I don't believe I need to expungate on the addictive dangers therein!
I think the conclusion is quite obvious - we're a people addicted to communication and transport! Hopefully a nice, well meaning New Age Liberal surgeon general will issue a proclomation about these events in the future! If only that open minded and charismatic Ronald Reagan was still in office - I'm sure he could convince those bad guys in blue to stop his part in the daily addiction of postal mail.
Now, excuse me while I go light up a cigarette...
WTF are you supposed to do?
Boss: "Did you get that email about the Johnson account?"
You: "No."
Boss: "Is there a problem with email today? I sent it this morning!"
You: "I dunno. I'm not checking email today. I feel I'm becoming addicted to email. So, I'm weaning myself off this dependence slowly."
Boss: "Why don't you run down to HR and they can help you wean yourself completely. As it turns out, we have a program that helps with this sort of thing. It's sort of a tough-love approach."
(hits reload for the nth time today)
Nathan's blog
Hey, I'd like to make sure I get my fill of the ol' lady every 2 or 3 days, but it doesn't always work out that way.
I've got Kmail setting in the system-tray checking my mail every 15min. In the course of a day that sums up to a lot more than 5 times. I should get help.
I think the term is being misued here. I check my snail mail box every day, too. Am I addicted to that? Christ on a Ritz crakcer, does everything under the sun have to be painted as an impending cirsis or failure of the human spirit? An addiction is a *compulsive* need. Most of these people check their email because SOMEONE MIGHT HAVE EMAILED THEM! DUH!
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.
Does that make my ex-girlfriend unamerican?
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Eating
P utting Pants on
Drinking Liquids
Sleeping
Walking
Breathing
Blinking
Tieing my Shoes
Wiping my Ass
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
We're geeks. How can we be addicted to something we never get.
Obsessed? Yes. Addicted? No.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Bah. Real addicts have slashdot on a 60 second refresh.
Deleted
Every year in the US and elsewhere, many thousands of University students graduate with a degree in Psychology. With few exceptions, that degree is about as good for wiping ones ass as finding a job. Enter the "Substance Abuse and Addiction Racket", an offshoot of psychology that postulates that everything from drugs to video games to pornography to (yes) email are addictive. A great many of the alarmist talk shows and news programs promote this notion with interviews of tearful victims who admit their "problem", especially after some not-so-subtle prodding from another guest who happens to be a psychologist. The end result is that many psychologists (not lucky enough to be hired by Oprah or Dr. Phil) get to work in treatment centers for various "addictions".
S
How Long From Wake-Up to Email
I Have X Email Addresses
Myself:
1-2 hours (time from bed to office)
5-8 email accounts (between school/work/personal/temporary)
I know that I don't have an email addiction. Now a generalized internet addiction, that's a slightly different story.
This is not my sig.
Novell Groupwise can do at least the first one. I don't know about the second one. I used to work in a corporate environment that used GroupWise for email, calendaring, and document sharing. You could monitor to see who had opened and read messages you sent out. Handy feature, that.
Here's a related anecdote: My brother's wife worked as a secretary downstairs in the office building, and we used to chat over email. One day I accidentally emailed her from the shared account used by my team (we were in end-user tech support). In the email I told her about the date I had been on the night before, and how we had kissed rather awkwardly at the end of it. She replied to the shared account and included my original message. She retracted the message as soon as she realized what she had done, but not before my supervisor had read it. Luckily he just thought it was funny.
And the happy ending: The second kiss was much less awkward, and we were happily married a few months later (and still are). The crimson color of my face eventually faded, but my supervisor still mentioned the event to me and chuckled on my last day o work.
CNET News.com also reported this last Thursday.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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.
I bet a survey in 1970 would show that well over 60% of people would have said that they started the day by reading the newspaper. Were they addicted to newspapers?
What a bullshit non-story. Sheesh.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
This is way off the subject, but this is the third time today I've either read somebody or heard somebody say something like this: ...check my physical mail box every day, just to see how much less money I'm going to have after I do bills...
What I want to know is: How can you not know already? Why are people afraid to check the mail, or hate when bills arrive? Don't you all already know how much money you spent, and when payment is due?
I have a huge ass mailbox because I often go weeks at a time witout checking it, yet still all my bills get paid on time, becuase bills are either recurring debt or I can't help but know what money I spent and, if it was on credit, when I need to pay off the balance by. The only things that vary are the electric and gas bills, and those hardly ever are more than a few dollars different than the same month last year. Do other people just not keep track?
It's a food industry conspiracy, they get children hooked very early on.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
What differentiates an addiction from an adaptation? When can an adaptation be said to have become an addiction? Playing with these ideas is a fun portal to understanding our makeup, but, at least for me, the answers aren't obvious. We function to a large degree by systems of negative feedback, with a few benign positive feedback loops, for example a sexual orgasim is the result of positive feedback, which for many can be said to be an addiction, there's evidence that less sexually active people live longer. Death is another example of positive feedback. Negative biological feedback systems keep us within balanced parameters. Balance while cycling is a great example of negative feedback functioning. Maybe an addiction can be said to be an adaptation that has gone into runaway and challenges the health of the system? My reading suggest our feedback systems are hierarchical and what is a benign or healthful adaptaion on one level can be a harmful addiction on another.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I posted this story back in April on my Web site (AQFL):
"Modern technology depletes human cognitive abilities more rapidly than drugs, according to a psychiatric study conducted at King's College, London. And the curse of 'messaging' is to blame.
E-mail users suffered a 10 per cent drop in IQ scores, more than twice the fall recorded by marijuana users, in a clinical trial of over a thousand participants. Doziness, lethargy and an inability to focus are classic characteristics of a spliffhead, but e-mail users exhibited these particular symptoms to a "startling" degree, according to Dr. Glenn Wilson. The deterioration in mental capacity was the direct result of the trialists' addiction to technology, researchers discovered. E-mail addicts were bombarded by context switches and developed an inability to distinguish between trivial and significant messages. Incredibly, 20 per cent of trialists jeopardized their immediate social relations by rushing off to "check their messages" in the middle of a conversation.
Wilson's research is no flash in the pan. Computer technology in its modern, "interconnected" form is dumbing down the population more rapidly than television."
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
There was a time in my life I didn't go a day without making a phone call or writing a letter. Now I send emails. Sometime in the future, I won't send emails and there will be another way of communicating daily. This is not a big deal.
Damn, I wish I could laugh at that. If it wasn't for my need to look up error codes in Google I'd ask them to remove web access from my desk.
Check CNN...check BBC...check Slashdot...anything new?...sure?...check again...repeat ad infinitum
I suppose, then, I am addicted to electricity (like bender?) because I turn lights on more than 5 times a day. The "more than 5 times a day" sketch as equated to addiction is absurd.
I must be addicted to food, because I eat or drink something more than 5 times a day.
The word addicted is being abused. I find e-mail very useful, and I would be very unhappy and inconvenienced if I had to go without it.
Using something habitually is not enough for addiction in my book. The thing must also be bad, its use at the habitual level must have produced mostly negative consequences. There must be an extremely compelling short-term benefit in exchange for severe negative long-term consequences of continuing the pattern.
This is why we say people who take harmful drugs are addicted or drink a lot, whereas people who eat every day or just have a beer a week and or so and drink water many times a day are just satisfying their physical and personal needs and desires.. just going about their daily business.
Eating food or drinking water every day is not going to hurt you in the long term, despite the short-term benefit. Your choice of foods is another matter (if you choose one sort of food every time and eat it too much, then there could be an addiction...)
Most people eat food 3 times a day, we don't say they are addicted to food. Most people drink water many times a day, many people start their day doing this, but we don't say people are addicted to water. These habits sustain, add order to, and help make parts of our lives simpler and more manageable.
There are other physical activities people do, like disposing of bodily wastes. These are natural seemingly harmless activities, just like checking e-mail.
Habits help us focus our mental energies into planning out and explicitly making the decisions about the important things and problems in life: for the trivial things, habits are mostly sufficient, they reduce the amount of self-micromanagement of our activities that's necessary, and ideally they are a safe bet (best way to proceed).
With e-mail checking, the habit may be there, but something else isn't... an impression on the people that e-mail is bad or unnatural. A desire to stop checking their e-mail which they can't fulfill without extreme effort and help: a true addiction.
If it is not something degrading or that will get in the way that you should want to stop, then it is not an addiction.
Back in the glory days of FidoNET, I was extremely addicted to e-mail and message boards in general. I can only imagine how many hours I wasted watching the waiting for caller screen and logging onto my BBS the instant a mail packet arrived.
What ruined it for me (and almost thankfully so) many years later was spam. Checking your e-mail every hour or so only to find a handful of spam is quite a buzzkill, obviously
"...in my view the only reason to make the distinction is to persecute somebody." -- Thomas Szasz
Evil sig is livE.
Is this the kind of crap that passes for news nowadays?
I am ashamed for the morons who put this study together and worse, the idiots (ComputerWorld) that publish this kind of useless information.
Because I'm required to? E-mail is how we get most of our important information at work. Most of our trouble tickets come in that way, as do any staff announcements. So first thing I need to do when I get to work is see what came in during the night, it might be something that needs fairly immediate attention. To not check my e-mail right away would be remiss in my job duties.
This peice looks like just so much uninformed fluff from a behavioural research group with little knowledge about technology. I remember in one of my psyc courses there was someone doing research about Internet usage habits. One of the first things they wanted to know is how long you log on to the Internet each day. I asked them what they meant, I'm ALWAYS on the Internet. It had never occured to them that a home computer might work the same way the campus ones do and have continual net access.
However even then they were trying to make it a seperate expeirence. In there mind there was a difference between being "online" and "offline". Like even if you had always on Internet, you stopped whatever you were doing to "get online" and did that seperatly. It was a foriegn concept that you migth pop open a browser, do a search, grab some information, and go right back to what you were doing in under a minute.
Thus far I'm never seen a computer related addiction study that has been worth the paper it was printed on. It always seems the researchers don't proerly technology and they comit the cardinal sin of scientific research: They assume a conclusion and attempt to gather data to back it up (good science is done the other way, you try as hard as you can to prove your theory false).
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
20 or 30 times a day? You're a slacker. I'm on it for 5 or 10 hours a day....
...
...
...
Oh, hang on for a minute, I have to check my email. I think I might know somebody who actually cares enough to send me email.....
Nope, false alarm.
How many people will go three days without access to a phone?
The cake is a pie
Of course, by those standards, most Americans must be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well
And coffee.
> Of course, by those standards, most Americans must
> be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well."
And breathing, sleeping, etc.
This is dumb. The fact that modern work requires heavy use of a given tool does NOT mean that those who use that tool are addicted to it. Ten thousand years ago, most humans made heavy use - perhaps even all day long - of hand-held stone tools. Were they "addicted" to them? Or were they simply making efficient use of an effective tool?
Sure, I check my email often, even on the weekends. And much of what is contained in that email has nothing to do with work. But that simply doesn't equate to addiction.
This whole notion is simply dumb and ignores the realities of what email is and does in the modern world.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
My own research has found that most Americans engage in speech at least 5 times per day, sometimes even 5 times per hour! Are Americans addicted to conversation? What about other forms of simple communication? Many Americans also write things and type things.
I say we nip this addiction in the bud. Luckily, most Americans use something called "language" for these purposes. The solution is obvious: put a high excise tax on language! We've got to fight this addiction!
Esoteric reference.
And in other news, human beings were proven to be "addicted" to breathing, blinking, eating, urinating and defecating, since these are all activities that they have been spotted doing up to many times daily. These activities fulfill the definition of addiction since the subjects demonstrate a change in behaviour to attempt to fulfill these activities even when their ability to do so is taken away.
Of course science, unlike other human professions, actually requires that the scientist use his brain once in a while since it's not just about the facts, it's about how those facts fit into the big picture. We can talk about people who have 126mg/dL of blood glucose all day long without it having any meaning. It's only when I point out that this is the cutoff for screening tests for diabetics to make the test MORE SENSITIVE, but having one blood glucose level above 126mg/dL does NOT make you a diabetic, that things start to make sense.
Addiction is a word that is currently being used out of context to "prove" any number of "points" where the doubtful results of poorly constructed "experiments" are shoved down our throats by the press because they can associate the stigma that goes with the word "Addict" to just about any situation, and help spread some guilt and blame around, which after all is what sells copy.
I would have expected slashdot to be above this, but obviously things have changed over the past few years.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You call that an addiction? That's not an addiction, that is way too healthy.
/. refreshes.
Now get in front of your computer and give me 600
You can't handle the truth.
So heavily that one quarter of respondents won't go more than two or three days without it.
If I went 3 days without checking my physical mail or voice mail, my customers would dump me. No less so my email.
Do you at Opinion Research Corporation wait 3 days before responding to business communications? Well, neither do I. Wise up, guys. Email isn't a toy and hasn't been for a decade, even in the most backwards industries. It is a tool for time-critical communications.
[Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld]
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Exactly - without email, I don't even have work to do. Do I check my email when I wake up in the morning? Yup, that's how I know what I'm doing at work that day. Same with checking my email while at work, same with checking my email while at home. If I have work to do, I find out via email - if I don't check my email, I will soon get fired.
I do, however, have a separate email address dedicated to social email, and probably a sum total of 4 people ever send me mail there. On average, I get like one social email every two days or so, and that usually sits in my inbox for a few days before I reply. Does that make me an eJunkie? No, but the compulsive web surfing certainly does.
-agent oranje.
Dear friends,
. org
I write this to inform you of a grave danger to you and your loved ones. I speak of "electronic mail", also known as "email" and sometimes simply referred to as "mail" in current street culture.
This growing threat, innocuous as it may sound, stands poised to subvert your very way of life. Even if you are wise enough to stay away from this terrible affliction disguised as techno-panacea, your spouse, children, parents, and all you love are still at risk.
"Electronic mail", a sub-project of the larger "Internet" project, is the result of several years of secret development by the US military several decades ago. Once released to the public, it was quickly recognized and began to be used in the mainstream. Academics were the first to be affected - a test population chosen by the defense department to examine the effects of this "technology" on an unsuspecting, well-educated individuals.
The technology quickly spun out of control, and even the military project that spawned it could not control it.
Millions of Americans are now plagued by this disease. Consumers of email are generally referred to as "users". You might be a user yourself. If you are not, your husband or wife might be one. Or your children. This evil is easily accessible even through public institutions such as schools and libraries. It has infiltrated our society to the core, and we shall face many tribulations along the path of extracting ourselves from the mess we have so naively gotten ourselves into.
E-mail addiction is NOT a joke. It is a serious problem, and it needs to be solved.
Please visit http://www.stopthespread.org/ to find out if you could be affected, and how you can help.
Before ending my communication, however, I shall inform you of common symptoms of electronic mail "users", so that you may easily tell if those that are close to you are affected.
If brought into daylight, email "users" squint and become disoriented. This is due to inordinate amount of time spent in front of a computer monitor, consuming electronic mail. Users' eyes become unhealthy, and weak - accustomed to low-light environments - and are unable to cope with the flood of stimulus provided by normal daylight.
Electronic mail users also become irritable, but otherwise unresponsive when taken away from a networked computer. Their mind, usually trained by the addiction to respond only to social stimulus through a digital networked medium, will stop recognizing normal, casual, face-to-face social stimulation.
Usage of common electronic mail slang by an individual in normal speech is a very good indication that he or she is a user. Some common slang words are 'lol', 'rofful', and 'rottilfamao'. These are strange translations of our normal laugh stimulus into the electronic mail medium. Many users even forget how to laugh, remembering only how to vocalize these alien words to express amusement or happiness.
If confronted, many users will deny that they have a problem. This is common characteristic of any addiction, and it's no different with those addicted to electronic mail. Visit our web-site for details on concrete actions you can take to help the user and place them back on the path of a normal life.
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
This problem affects ALL OF US.
Stopthespread is also promoting legislative solutions to curb this growing menace. Please call your local representative and encourage them to take this issue seriously.
Yours Sincerely,
Laxitive
Spokesperson
Stopthespread
This page is a candidate for speedy deletion.
If you disagree with its speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page or at Wikipedia:Speedy deletions. If this page obviously does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from articles that you have created yourself.
For me, my main communications tools are:
IRC - anyone can reach me at any time when I'm at my PC, if I'm away or out then I can pick up their PM on my return.
Mobile phone - either phone calls or SMS can be used to contact me anytime, anywhere.
Instant Messaging - I occasionally logon to IM networks, however this is not very often as these types of service tend to intrude on me too much whereas other communication services allow me to deal with information in my own time.
I see email as merely an Internet-based replacement for information-based postal services with a few addititions, most importantly that it allows for near-instant delivery 24/7. I simple have my email client open and if I get new mail I get notified in the bottom right corner of my screen. If I choose not to read the email instantly an envelope icon remains in my system tray to remind me it's there.
I can see why it might be different for those with webmail, as with webmail the user has to actively carry out the task of checking for email, but for myself as an email client user, I'll admit it is a useful tool, but only one of a number of communications tools I use on a daily basis.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
And if others are aware of me, then I must exist. I get email, therefore I am. Now excuse me while I turn on my spam filt!#%^T!@^~no carrier
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I check my email 288 times a day (that's once every 5 minutes). Or actually, my computer does and alerts me when something comes in. I also check some websites about 24 times a day. Or actually, my RSS aggregator does that. I check my IM messages roughly 86400 times a day. Or actually, my IM client does it for me. When I'm away, I can have my messages and emails forwarded to my cellphone, or I fetch them off my PDA occasionally.
;-)
Am I addicted?
I think a better guage for addiction is how much effort one is willing to exert to achieve some sort of menial satisfaction. Or rather, has the satisfaction gotten to the point that it's no longer menial...
Maybe I'm wrong, but, if anything, this article has little to say about addiction. If anything, it's just a testiment that the Internet is a success, but I think that we, here at Slashdot, already knew that.
- shazow
Until very recently I never stored my email pws. the one time years ago something malicious tryed to email out it asked for my pw and alerted me to it's presence. so i felt that was a reasonable security measure.
lately it got to be to much of a hassel now that i am checking multiple accounts for werk so i gave in and just hope my anti-virus sw holds up.
the next thing i hope to quell is the reciept notification popup. I want some of those people to realize that the stuff I am emailing them is _not_ that important. The stuff that is crucial to our business never gets tagged for reciept or tagged important but some GUY who's EMAILing ME pics of his daughter at homecoming has reciept notification turned on.
"He's a real midnight golfer"
I also check my answering machine everytime I come home. And some people even *gasp* read the newspaper in the morning. It must be an addiction!
If anything social creatures, such as human beings, have a natural desire to communicate. Checking email occationally seems to be more natural than not checking your email.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If there's an "addiction" here, it's an addiction to calling things addictions, when they aren't. This is one of those rare instances when I have to agree with the right wing- "personal responsibility" just isn't fashionable anymore. It's not my fault that I'm out of shape: I'm addicted to TV, so it's the TV's fault. It's not my fault I'm fat, I'm addicted to food. And it's not my fault I never get any work done, I'm an email junkie (complete with track marks up and down my arms where I tried to plug in the ethernet cable). Etcetera.
You too? I thought it was just me who had my email checking 24/7.
I have to in order to keep up with the spam - if I leave it overnight with no checking then I get about 250 spams.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
You are addicted to food. Try going without it for a few days and see if you don't get symptoms.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
In my opinion, yes. While TV news might have taken over somewhat, most people are still addicted to news. Because for the vast majority of us, it's something that's totally irrelevant for our lives. It might be a nice hobby to know what's going on in Iraq, but it has little or no consequences for our daily lives. The same can be said about sports (or the weather report).
What a bullshit non-story. Sheesh.
Huh, you don't think 5 times a day is excessive. Personally, I check my e-mail at most once a day. It is, after all called e-mail. It's not like I empty my snail-mail several times daily either. Usually it's at most once a week, since it's mostly bills or trash anyway. If people want to reach me now, they can reach me through an invention patented by Graham Bell.
The word "addiction" gets thrown around a lot.
In most cases, when the topic is not some chemical substance (nicotine, caffeine, crack, etc.), the proper term is "obsession". Obsessive behaviour and addiction are certainly linked, but I think the distinction is important.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
I'm really lost as to what you base your "personal responsibility" claim on from a set of economic theories. Care to explain?
the layman's guide to computer science
Here's what it does for the addict.
I have not looked hard at how it works, but I suspect that the system embeds a small graphic that is loaded off of a remote web server where the are doing extensive logging and reporting back to the addict..I mean sender. If that is it, then you could easily replicate that by adding a graphic to your signature that loads from your web server.
The server is called DidTheyReadIt?
Oh my God, I'm addicted to talking to people! Hardly a day goes by that I don't talk to somebody!
Chris Mattern
Yes, I guess at some point there is a server or two out there, and I read it on a piece of hardware - but Hardware ?
You have to love slashdot catagories
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I tend to check slashdot 20-30 times a day, during the work week, but I'd hardly call it an addiction. When I don't come to work, I don't check slashdot...I think it's directly related to how fucking bored I get at work.
I'm mostly addicted to snail mail. I check my mailbox everyday, except Sundays and holidays.
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
You know... When you are comparing email to water, you might really be addicted.
This sig is funny.
And e-mail is old-school interaction: it's like writing letters, which is what people used to do before telephones.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I'm addicted to voicemail. BECAUSE I NEED IT TO WORK, just like Email. Just because you do something a lot it's not an addiction. The title of this article is asinine, bullshit hype. I check my Email all the time, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be doing my freaking job!
Well I'm a little worried....
I probably check my e-mail (manually) 20 times a day...on a slow day. A lot of what I am checking for is things like responses to my posts on Slashdot (and many others.) I also sell photographs, and people send inquries via e-mail...I want to jump on those ASAP- because typically they will buy from the first person who responds.
That doesn't count my work e-mail, which runs a check every 5 minutes, and notifies me when I get an e-mail. I check that one manually a lot, because sometimes I figure I don't want to wait 5 minutes...
I guess I am way beyond addicted- but it is pretty nice. I have a few buddies who I e-mail regularly (some who I ONLY know via e-mail) and it is nice to have people who respond in 2 minutes, instead of two days.
I *hate* when people only check their e-mail once a day, or even worse, once a week.
SPEED UP PEOPLE!
No reason to lie.
when I was looking for a cruise and the deciding factor was whether or not I can get internet in my cabin.
Of course, it's good, I use it for work, I IM or call my friends. It's just communication, and that's what people are really addicted too, humans are a very community-oriented species. It's just a new way, and this is a way of saying "You're addicted! Ahhh! Run!!! Look at our reports! We're useful!!!! AHH!!" Nothing more, nothing less.
You check your answering machine when you come home from work, don't you? I wonder how many people are addicted to answering machines.
On the average, respondents admitted to checking their email five times a day.
I check my e-mail around 50 times: Whenever I'm on the computer Thunderbird checks every 5 minutes. I'm not addicted to e-mail, but the point of it is quick communication, right? What's the point if it takes you two days to reply? At that rate you can call the person when you get around to it, or in some cases snail mail them.
So heavily that one quarter of respondents won't go more than two or three days without it.
See above.
The thing with e-mail is that in most cases you need to actively check it. You check your mail as often as it comes, why not e-mail? You usually check your voicemail when it comes, so why not e-mail? Addicted? Hardly.
--<Mike>--
Having notifiers and feeds helps a lot for those over addicted email users.. I used to check my email every 5 minutes. Now, I let the notifiers do that. Although I open the browser and do an occasional refresh (just to try and beat the notifier). For slashdoters, the best way is to use ATOM/RSS feeds so that we dont have to come here every 10 minutes!! (If you are like me and come back and read all comments, then this wont work for you :-) )
Vnode
Is this a new Linux distro?
Five times a day is an addiction? When I was in college, I got an email from root telling me to stop checking my mail so often because it was bringing down the server.
"You are connecting to the imap server so frequently as to impact imap service for others."
Now that's addiction!
Most workers in cube hell are no more addicted to checking email than they are addicted to the air they must breathe to survive.
I don't know about where you guys work, but to say that every co-worker I've had in the past 4 years "checks his email" is probably a misnomer. Outlook, that evil beast, is always open, always notifying people immediately when they have new mail.
(Side rant: Why do they insist on CC:ing half the company, even when they're not tattling or trying to save their own asses? The Reply-All button is a bug, not a feature. As a web dork, I have no need to know that Dolores in Accounts Receiveables needs clarification on that invoice Herb sent to ACME Inc.)
Exactly...Email is my companies primary form of communication and I have to check it all day. We are just now starting to use Lotus Sametime IM, but that will never replace the ol' email. Someone will come up with a cross between email and IM so its all the same. If you are "active" you receive the information as an instant message, if you are "in-active" or offline the information is stored on server. One interface to rule them all.
You know what's even worse? Fark. Once you pop. you can't stop.
Get your own free personal location tracker
If people want to reach me now, they can reach me through an invention patented by Graham Bell.
Why would I want to talk to a jerk who won't even check his email more than once per day?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I take 18,720 hits of air per day. Without it, I notice _severe_ withdrawl within seconds, and realize that I will die within minutes without another hit.
I'd better get treatment fast.
A simple test:
Place people on a desert island- deprive them of food. See how long they live.
Place people on a desert island- deprive them of email. See how long they live.
Repeat for breathing, sex, whatever- figure out what is essential.
I know that I may not enjoy going three days without sex, however, if that killed me, I would be long gone. In fact.... I think I have gone 3 years without sex... and I am still alive.
So I do think that the term addiction is used in its very loosest sense here. I don't think anyone has ever had Delerium Tremors from not being able to use email for a while... Perhaps it would be better to say "people are so used to email that they don't like when they can't check it all the time." One time, i left my cell phone on top of my truck. Long story short I ended up diving over it. I was without a cell phone for 3 days (another long story). The first day was awful, I felt naked, and then it was actually liberating. Sort of like the first time I kicked off my Speedo and dove nude into the pool....
If a man speaks in the forest, and there is no woman there to hear him, is he still wrong?
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Denial is the first stage of addiction. They must be right.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Not to be pedantic or anything, but I'm pretty sure it's your scrotum that you're addicted to scratching...
You can say the same for electricity. Or gasoline. Or plastic. So...are we "addicted" to those too?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Nope. My standard email client checks for new mail once a minute, and it is open on my desktop from when I log in until when I log out to go home. My personal account (offsite) biffs me when mail shows up there.
There's too many times my boss has come across the hall to say "I just mailed you" something I need to work on, and it is better for me to be able to say "read my reply" than "what mail?"
But on WEEKENDS, what email? Were I truly addicted, there would be withdrawal symptoms. Nope.
This is just another example of media hype. Stories don't sell if they are "things are normal, there's nothing to see here". They sell if there is some new danger to look out for. "Email addiction" is today's Chicken Little. ACM's 'Computer' carried an article about Internet addiction a while back; same deal. People were USING the internet, so they must be ADDICTED to it. Never mind that it was convenience, it was ADDICTION because they used it.
It is fallacy to claim that everthing that people do is because they are addicted to doing it. They put on their pants when they get up in the morning; not an addiction. They have a cup of coffee; still not an addiction. They wash their face; no addiction to be found. This morning, I moved a fallen tree branch out of the driveway; am I addicted to moving fallen tree branches, or was it simply more convenient to move it rather than drive over it and risk denting the car? And had I not moved the branch, would I be "addicted" to putting dents in the car? Phhhht.
480 times a day (once a minute every minute)
What planet do you live on? On earth, there are 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day, therefore 1440 minutes in a day. Your planet must rotate much faster.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Doesn't sound that far off...
--pyro_dude
And of course, even better to say: "I'll look at it after I've checked my email tomorrow". But then again, our jobs might be a little different?
But on WEEKENDS, what email? Were I truly addicted, there would be withdrawal symptoms. Nope.
Good thing!
No, the point is that E-mail is too broad a category to be called an addiction. It's stupid. E-mail is not an end in itself, it's a means to do other things. It's the same with walking, you walk to go to place to place and to get you things, it's not because you just like walking. And obviously you're not addicted to walking.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
A recent poll of americans demonstrates that over 90% of them are addicted to shoes. Virtually all of them responded that they would not leave the house in the morning without putting on shoe's and that not having shoes readily avalible while at the office caused them extream angsiety.
Many of those polled indicated that they actually wore shoes all day every day regardless of what other activities were being persued.
Further it has become clear to reaserchers that the human body, if provided with a steady stream of shoe wearing, will actually grow to be dependent on shoes, signifiganly reducing the users ability to carry on day to day tasks without shoes.
In your case, I would recommend not watching the news. It might be too hard for you to understand, and it seems to confuse you. I'm not sure about the US (which you seem to be from), but here in Norway, we have a weekly newspaper for mentally retarded people called "Klar Tale" (Clear Speech), which I keep recommending to people as confused as you are. It might be easier to understand for you, and should be enough to give you a somewhat broader picture than FOX News.
That doesn't really explain his point though, what left or right-wing has to do with personal responsibility.
That's odd, because I've never heard any left-wing commentators denigrating the importance of taking responsibility for one's own actions. If anything, that's an anomic viewpoint - if such a thing can be said to exist. I don't think any philosophy or political theory could be taken seriously if its followers took no heed of responsibility or the effects of their actions.
the layman's guide to computer science
Hi, my name is David, and I'm an Emailaholic.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
I pretty much leave my mail client open all day, and it's set to go check for new mail every 10 minutes or so, and make a little noise if it finds anything. Technically, this means I check my e-mail 6 times an hour, or 144 times a day.
Per e-mail address. There's several.
Am I addicted? Hell no. Most of this happens when I'm watching TV, or eating a sandwitch, or on the toilet. It's kinda like my telephone, it only becomes important when it rings.
And sometimes it even rings when I'm on the toilet, and I ignore it.
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
I read my e-mail for work. Does that make me an addicted workaholic? The followup story will write itself!
You actually made me chuckle out loud a little bit...
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Food? Water?
No, no, no...
What about my addiction to AIR??!!
I'll take you to the ball, Barbara Manitee!!!
"Are you addicted to the toilet? 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 99% of respondents start the day by going to the toilet and checking for results.
My doctor diagnosed me and it seems I have a working addiction. Because you're my employer I wanted to tell you that can't work for you anymore...so anyway remember to write this off as a work related injury...
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
Here's a hint, put whatever it is we're supposed to be reading _first._ If you want to put it in the form "[This site] has posted [this article]" that's fine, but no hiding the actual content at the end or mixed in with lots of other sites.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
*ducks*
I dont know about you, but I try and check my email once every 5 minutes and cant go more than 6 hours without checking it...
I'm not sure if that is directed at me or not, but I'd like to point out that I was trying to make fun of the "addiction" claim. Also, the title originally submitted was less definite but changed by Taco.
Before any liberals are tempted to mod up one of my comments, a word of warning: I'm actually making fun of you.
What about Slashdot addiction? For me is even worse than e-mail...
I hear ya. Geez...I have email on at least 2 of the computers on my desk at work the whole time I'm here. At home..I have email running 24/7....check it whenever I walk by one of them....
5 times a day addictive? Geez, I'm addicted to LOTS of things if that is the requisite number of times. Lets see...the TV is one every waking hour I'm at home...etc.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actualy, most IM apps work this way, you get the messages as soon as you get online... But because of the interface, you can't sort messages in folders and most of them are oneliners, but it works...
Not at option at many place you might work at. Every place I've worked at, has IM ports blocked. I'm so used to email, I often hold real time conversations on it....so used to it that I often use it like IM.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Apparently I'm addicted to the US postal service. I check my mailbox almost every day, sometimes even on Sundays when I forget it's Sunday. Please help me find a good therapist.
--
We are the priests Of the temples of the syrinx Our great computers Fill our hallowed halls
The point the great-grandparent was making is that today it's "in style" to blame everybody but yourself for the way you are. They're fat so they blame fast food and not their lazy ass; they're stupid so they blame the school system and not their incapacity to pick up a book instead of watch the television; etc.
Right-wingedness pushes a mentality of self-direction and personal responsibility to the tune of "If you fail, it's your own fault. If you succeed, it is your own success." Right wingers aren't about pointing fingers or finding reasons or excuses for the way they are; if they're upset with themselves, they're about decisive action in a direction opposite the one they're going. If they're lazy and fat and they don't like it, they will stop being lazy and fat and start exercising. If they're stupid, they'll put an ad in the paper for a math tutor or whatever and bring up their intelligence in a certain area.
In short--
Left wing:
First, we say we're addicted to email. Next, we'll be talking about all the bad things this addiction causes. Lost productivity, wasted personal time, overtime pay that need not be paid, and so on. Finally we'll be looking at ways to combat this email problem. I'm sure there will be a panel, maybe a national commission, a couple organizations, maybe an international coordinated effort between multiple nations to eradicate this terrible addiction once and for all. ("War on e-mail, next on 60 minutes.")
Right wing:
We feel like we're checking our email too often.
So, we decided to cut down.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Geez...5 times a day = addiction?
If I stuck my arm down my toilet 5 times a day, it could be a weird addiction...or I could be a plumber.
I guess "Americans Addicted to Email" is going to sell more magazines. "Flawed Survery Offers No Clear Conclusions on Email Usage" just doesn't have the same panache.
Holy cow yes! You're addicted to all of those things! How many times a day do you use the restroom? JUNKIE!! ;-)
What's with the journalistic trend of equating frequency with addiction anyway? I say 'hi' at least 30 times a day, on a slow day. Am I hooked?
Making the world a better place, one psychotic episode at a time.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
This is slashdot. Didn't you get the memo about patents? :-)
Left wing: I email too much. I talked with some people about it, they agreed, so I switched to the phone.
Right wing: You email too much. Switch to the phone.
--
make install -not war
lop off my left breast with a rusty butter knife than go without my e-mail for a day! Besides my work e-mail address I have to check my personal e-mail address about 10 times a day at least! I have the google mail notifier and everything!
So basically you're checking your email manually more often than every five minutes. I'd say that was a problem if your work requires any kind of concentration, immersion, or 'flow'.
Besides, why don't you just configure your email program to check every minute if you're that bothered. With your current habits, you'll probably save time.
I am reminded of the line "The telephone has no consitutional right to be answered."
I set this milestone just today, coincidentally.
If I ever use a portable electronic device to recieve and reply to email while in the bathroom taking a dump, like the guy in the stall next to me at work earlier was doing with his BlackBerry, then it's time. Please shoot me then.
Cool funny t-shirts for geeks, gamers and everyone else
Politcal ideology is all fine and dandy, but in real world situations almost all people I know have trouble blaming themselves for their problems, right wingers or left-it doesn't seem to matter.
How many supposedly conversative figures blaming (left wing) media witch hunts and conspiracies for their own ethical failures do we need to see to realize they act just like the lefties when they get caught? How many people blame portrayals of sex and violence, satanic influences, and/or lack of prayer in school for every instance of childhood violence? Are they all left wingers? I think not.
To constrast, the people I know who do take responsibility for their actions haven't been correlated with one political ideology either.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Definitely check out eTrackMail. They handle exactly that sort of thing. I know a few people using it, and they like it a lot.
http://www.etrackmail.com/
94TT
Real time...I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.
For it to be a real time communication (conversation) it would have to occur at the same speed it would if in person.
Your mind looks a little cramped. Why don't you stretch it a little?
From your previous post, I quote: "Actually Sept 11 happened because of the hatred of the US and its ideology by people on the other side of the world.".
Are you sure about that? Why? What have those that did it said about it? Do we even know who did it? Does the explanation sound plausible? Because people hate US and it's ideologies, they blow up buildings with planes?
The truth is, we still don't know what the people involved in 9/11 wanted. We think we know who some of them were. But even after two wars, we still don't understand their motives, or even if the attack worked as planned, or a lot of other things. The explanation you gave is totally unsatisfactory on a lot of accounts, and frankly, it doesn't make sense at all. It was however popular with some right-wing US media for a period.
You also said: "Everything that happens in washington lately has been a result of an act of terrorism which led to this war."
I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist, but frankly, do you really believe that nothing of that would have happened if it wasn't for 9/11? Bush saw 9/11 as an opportunity to do what he wanted to do anyway (go to war in Iraq) a little bit faster. I can agree that Afghanistan might have been avoided, but Iraq was pretty much a target anyway. Or have you been living in a vacuum?
[snip]...but even in Norway you have to admit that things that happen on the otherside of the world affect you at least to some extent.
Not really.
Having an oil-based economy should at least in theory make us feel changes in oil-price pretty well. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. For me, as a private person, it has no measurable effect. Maybe the total stock-exchange index can feel a few percent, but the local variations in stock-price are much larger. And if the gas-price gets some percent bigger or smaller, it's still nothing compared to whether I take a night out and drink some beer.
Having close economic and military ties with the US, one should guess we would feel "the war on terror" too. We don't. The last time we had a hijacker in Norway, it was on a domestic flight, where the airport security was so lax, that they allowed a mentally disturbed asylum seeker to bring an axe on-board! The hijacker was then overpowered by a major from a small city (and no, he did not look like that californian governor).
The truth is, the world is a chaotic place. Things happen everywhere, all the time. What gets selected as "news" by the press is pretty arbitrary, and it really doesn't make sense to pay to much attention to it, except as entertainment. It certainly doesn't affect you any more than the zillions of things happening that never qualifies as "news".
What matters to you is what happens locally that affects you, and those things you tend to find out about anyway. In short, unless you feel the effect yourself, it isn't really there! Local variations are more important.
That doesn't mean that some global trends aren't important. They can be important for people planning things for many people (such as people dealing with state budget or national security). They are, however, of absolutely no importance to me. And even to people that would benefit from knowing about important trends, knowing that some muslim killed some jews in Gaza, is totally worthless.
On the other hand, knowing that from time to time, there are conflicts in the middle east, with crazy people on both sides; is useful knowledge for some people (although, apart from being able to keep up a conversation with other people, I've never really needed to know it myself).
To keep things in perspective, you should worry more about local crime than the war on terror. But much more worrysome is the risk of damaging yourself in the kitchen with either hot stuff or sharp knives :-)
Of course, by those standards, most Americans must be addicted to work, sex, and TV as well.
Ah, those sad lonely pastimes of Slashdotters...
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
He's obviously talking about his work hrs dimwit.
LOL to saying "hi" 30 times a day = crack addict.
Or...I check my e-mail at irregular intervals. With longer and shorter periods of time between checks, allowing long stretches of concentration. Interrupted by short bursts of e-mail hyperactivity.
Not everything is an average.
No reason to lie.
i'd be fired if i only checked my email 5 times a day. lol.
It takes just a moment and an action to destroy. It takes some time and thought to create.
I wonder how many people require heavy email use for their work?
~X~
~X~
Part of my job entails checking my email as a primary means of communication. The study made no mention of whether this was strictly personal usage or not. That, and all the other reasons mentioned, makes it sound like BS to me...
Addicted? Me? No way! I would gladly give up my email privileges if the powers that be would let me! I am a full time graduate student (with three classes), I work three days a week (jealous?), and I am currently in a long distance relationship (he's in NC and I'm in DC)... and I check my email about ten times a day just to keep up with everything. I'd love to stop checking it so obsessively, but I'd be left out in dark and be forced to start every conversation with "Umm, no, I haven't read that email you sent yet, I'm sorry- but can you give me a quick recap?" I don't think it's better or worse than voice mail... when's the last time you neglected your answering machine for days at a time?
Obviously the editors are paying attention to the wonderful feedback they get about how the 'IT' section has a terrible color scheme. Expect to see more misfiled stories like this. It's a feature, I tell you, not a bug!
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I can stop anytime. ANYTIME damn it!
What are you doing now, you lazy drunken obscene unsayable son of an unnameable gipsy obscenity?
I have 6 active email accounts. Are you referring to the one I use for business? (checked over 20 times a day); or the one I use for family/friends? (checked twice a day); or the one I use for hacking? (maybe once a day); or the one I use for spamming? (once a week). Let's be a bit more specific when we write these yellow press articles.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Company rules: check your email often, especially when working from home. I check it when I get in to work, then leave the window open on a second display in case I get something from one of the monitoring tools. Luckily I don't often have to worry about my boss asking about email she sends - I work nights, she works days...
Amateur.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Left wing: First, we say we're addicted to email. Next, we'll be talking about all the bad things this addiction causes. Lost productivity, wasted personal time, overtime pay that need not be paid, and so on. Finally we'll be looking at ways to combat this email problem. I'm sure there will be a panel, maybe a national commission, a couple organizations, maybe an international coordinated effort between multiple nations to eradicate this terrible addiction once and for all. ("War on e-mail, next on 60 minutes.")
Right wing: We feel like we're checking our email too often. So, we decided to cut down.
Aren't "lost productivity" and "overtime pay" typically right wing talking points? Your own example contradicts your point. Troll?
What is "in style" is for the right wing to blame everything on liberals. Most of our recent "War-ons" have been right wing creations, not left. In an ideology where admitting mistakes and looking at multiple points of view are considered weaknesses, is there really any room for personal responsiblity?
The rhetoric surrounding the No Child Left Behind Act included lots of talk about holding teachers and schools repsponsible. But when 9/11 rolled around, I recall Mr. Bush being against any 9/11 commission. Did anybody take responsibility for the massive failure of our massively expensive defense/intelligence systems? Two years after "Mission Accomplished" and civil services in Iraq are still worse than when before the invasion? There are daily bombings in the capital? If a stable democratic Iraq was the "goal" from the outset; where was the plan to achieve that goal? Was the plan either so bad or so poorly implemented, that we are left with the festering mess we have today? In either case, shouldn't there be some valiant righty taking "personal responsiblty" for at least some of the mistakes? All I hear is a bunch of excuses and whining/joking about liberals.
It is the right who wants the FCC to move into cable and satellite (increasing federal regulation) because they can't seem to take "personal responsibity" for what they are watching/hearing on a private subscription service. By blaming liberals for this, you are simply refusing to take responsibity for what elements of your own party are doing.
There is certainly corruption and dishonesty on all sides. But if you can't admit a mistake, how can you ever take responsiblity for it?
Trust me, make that incision, and you'll enter a whole new world of scratching pleasure.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
PVR's fix that whole channel changing problem... you should check them out.
+++OK ATH
email addiction is when you wake up in the middle of the night to take a piss, and on the way back, you stop by to check your email.
email addiction is when you you wake up in the morning, and before going to the bathroom, before changing your clothes, even before making coffee, you go check your email.
email addiction is when you click the "Check for New Mail" button every minute
email addiction is when you connect to juno every 5 minutes to check for a response
email addiction is when you get really depressed for not receiving any new email.
email addiction is when you're happy to even receive spam!
HD Trailers
Oh my god! The first symptom of adiction is denial...
I was going to reply to this story, but I had to check my email after I read it....
mark "but it's on the same screen!"
Examples included the ability to retract unread messages (45%) and a way to track the forwarding of their own email (43%).
But how many of those people would knowingly want those things to be able to be unknowlingly done to them as e-mail recipients ?
Sure, I'd like the ability to do those 2 things regardless of whether my recipients want it or know about it - but there's no way I'd use an e-mail client that would allow people to do it to me, so I wouldn't be so silly as to say that I want those as general e-mail features.
They have a cup of coffee; still not an addiction.
I agree with your general point, but you're wrong about this one. People feel like they need a cup of coffee in the morning precisely because they are addicted.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
And of course, even better to say: "I'll look at it after I've checked my email tomorrow". But then again, our jobs might be a little different?
I'd say. You must be a forest ranger.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.