Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Study Finds Value in Email Spam

Posted by Zonk on from the better-than-the-porky-kind-anyway dept.

Ant writes "According to a LiveScience story, a steady diet of email spam can be good for you. From the article: 'Researchers split a group of more than 2,100 Canadians into two groups. One group got e-mails that promoted healthy lifestyles, the other got none. "These were informative and motivational messages sent weekly for 12 weeks," explained study leader Ron Plotnikoff of the University of Alberta. The e-mails promoted the benefits of a good diet and physical activity. Those who were effectively spammed, as a group, saw their mean body mass index (BMI) go down, meaning it improved. BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. Overall BMI rose for the control group, which did not get the emails.'"

2 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Spam + Solicitation != Spam by Endareth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Surely spam by definition is unsolicited? If you have a group of people choosing to receive it then it's no longer spam. Whatever the intention and results of this study, linking it to spam is simply wrong.

    --
    Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
    1. Re:Spam + Solicitation != Spam by MattyDK23 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The article doesn't mention, though, if the members of the spam group were aware of the fact that they were receiving the study's spam -- or if the members of the no-spam group were aware they weren't receiving the study's spam.
      Furthermore, could the spam group differentiate between the genuine spam and the study's opt-in spam?
      It's kind of like a blind test. Sure, you probably signed a waiver saying you're willing to receive extra "spam". But you don't know if you're receiving the extra spam or not, and if you are, you're not aware of which emails are the extra spam.