Slashdot Mirror
Why Email Has Become Dangerous
mikkl666 writes "The Sydney Morning Herald runs an interesting story dealing with a study about email user behavior, explaining how and why email can be a terrible distraction: 'It takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email. So people who check their email every five minutes waste 8 1/2 hours a week figuring out what they were doing moments before.' Email is also compared to slot machines in the way it works psychologically: 'So with email, usually when I check it there is nothing interesting, but every so often there's something wonderful — an invite out or maybe some juicy gossip — and I get a reward.' There are also some hints offered on how to keep control of the inbox, for those of us already addicted."
As far as not interrupting work, email is better than any other medium because I can choose when to read the message. That is not true if someone calls me, or walks into my cube.
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
If you're checking your email hoping for an "invite out" or "juicy gossip," the time you are on probably isn't very valuable before anyway. In a business environment, you aren't wasting time, you're communicating. Not taking in to account organizational spam, of course.
Whale
Lets just throw in that distracting "talking" thing which many people are utterly addicted to. They waste hours every day talking or being talked at. Many love to exchange lots of gossip and when they hear something juicy or tell a joke and their reward center is triggered by another talker reacting positively they get a buzz like with a slot machine and it can be terrible for your concentration.
Slashdot wastes far more time than e-mail :D
usually when I check it there is nothing interesting, but every so often there's something wonderful
This describes Slashdot exactly.
This argument is essentially flawed: It does not take into account the time *saved* by checking the email every five minutes.
If I get an email from my boss he might need an immediate answer, otherwise it is *his* time (more expensive) that is wasted if he needs an answer before he can do something.
And this also applies for my colleagues.
Plus since I don't have to idle while they answer, I make up for that 'wasted' time the article mentions.
Please don't listen to this crap, if you don't want to waste time on email just ignore those powerpoints with music and flowers, but do read the work emails as soon as possible.
This is why push email is so good. You don't (or don't need to) be hovering around your inbox like a dog wanting to get a treat. On my Blackberry, I setup filters and blocks so only the important emails come through, while the regular 'crap' stays on my inbox. It's still distracting (unless you turn on silent), but it still distracts a LOT less than checking your email every few minutes...
Okay, so what about all the other interruptions in the day (mandatory meetings that don't involve what you're doing but you have to go to it anyway, emergencies that pop up which you're required to jump after, the Boss stopping by to get your input on something he/she just saw somewhere, folks stopping by to tell you some joke they heard on TV last night, vendors(!) wanting to get a word in edge-wise with you, phone calls, etc)?
Trust me, there's far worse than email out there (and I can always minimize my email client until I decide to go look at it).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
TFA and some comments keep mentioning "checking email every 5 minutes".
Don't you use email clients that check for new email automatically every 5 minutes and tells you if a new email has arrived? If you need to manually click a "get new emails" button every 5 minutes then I suggest you find a better program.
In fact I've never seen an email client that couldn't do this, so what gives?
Getting a marketing call is the worst. How the fark did they get my direct dial number? It's not just bad because it's directly distracting, it's bad because afterwards I get pissed off that I was distracted.
At least if I choose to check my email (or IM) messages it's because I want to [know if I have any replies on /.]. Also if I'm busy I can just not check my email. Since I use Outlook for my work mail I can just check the system try to see if there's a mail icon anyway (but this only works for the main inbox, not subfolders).
which is totally what she said
Mr Reynolds has even begun to think of email as rude and invasive, preferring to use tools such as Twitter
Yeah, right! And did you know that heroin was invented because doctors in the 19th century thought morphine was too addictive?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I work in a corporate culture where if you are not available via
instant messaging, many perceive is that you are not really working at
the time. I know several people who wake up in the morning and the
first thing they do is connect via the VPN to get their instant
messaging client running so that their bosses and coworkers think
they are working diligently. I work best by batching tasks via email
messages, so I make it clear to people to just send me an email and I
will get back to them within a day or so. This does not work for some
people; one person in my organization will try instant messaging me
and calling my office phone, but he will not bother to send me an
email, and then he will later complain that he cannot communicate with
me.
As a software engineer, I remain productive by having several hours of
uninterrupted time to focus on a particular task at hand. When the
code builds, installs, tests, and is in the repo ready for the next
release, then I am ready to move on to the next task, like check my
email, which I do maybe two or three times a day. I am able to give my
code the due attention it deserves, and I can concentrate on not
making coding mistakes by keeping the entire code context "swapped in"
my head while I am working on it. During that time, invariably some
project manager somewhere is panicking about a status report or some
other overhead and is trying to get me to update a bug ticket or
something. Usually, by the time I read his frantic email about the
status report, I have already fixed the problem that he wants status
on because I was able to focus on it without interruption.
Most people eventually figure out that they get good consistent work
from me regardless of the fact that they cannot interrupt me freely at
any time, like most other employees in my organization. I do wish that
more of my coworkers would take a more proactive stance on not letting
themselves get interrupted all the time, since I see first-hand the
negative impact it has on their ability to function. I get annoyed
when I am trying to talk to my boss during a meeting and he stammers
right in the middle of an important discussion with, "Uh, wait, I just
got am IM, I, uh, need to, uh, just a second, let me think..."
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
I think the study's results are extremely age-, habit-, and context-dependent.
1) I'm a freight forwarder, dealing with time-sensitive issues all the time, and receiving around 150 emails a day (not counting junk/spam/personal). If it took me a minute or more to return to the context of what I was doing every time I answer an email, I'd never leave work. Perhaps for people in fields where email isn't a constant thing, it would be more distracting, but certainly not for people where email IS their job.
2) I'm 41. I've been 'on the internet' since at least the mid 90's (cred: I had a 5-digit slashdot ID at one time but forgot the login/pw....) so for me email is a very usual way to communicate, I prefer it. Even I have to admit that I'm baffled by how well younger people (teens or 20-somethings) can multitask through 8 different chat threads simultaneous. Yes, like many my age, I try to tell myself that they aren't able to think 'as deeply' in that experience, but in honesty that's a rationalization and they may simply be much better at that 'style' of comunication. For someone like my parents, I'd say yes, an email may be very jarring but for my generation and younger, not so much.
So while I can accept that a lawyer or researcher in his or her mid fifties or 60's, on hearing the 'ding' of email and breaking out of what they were doing to read it may indeed take over a minute to get back into the groove of what they were doing, I don't believe this result is average for most computer-literate people today.
-Styopa
The best/worst part of TFA (and I couldn't really keep myself reading after this pile of crap) is this:
Mr Reynolds has even begun to think of email as rude and invasive, preferring to use tools such as Twitter and Flickr. He also uses social networking sites such as Dopplr, which tracks people's travel, to find out if they are away before he contacts them, and status alerts from instant messenger or Twitter to help him decide if now is a good time to interrupt them. Other tools, such as blogs and wikis, have decreased the amount of email that he sends and receives, while RSS feeds and recommendations from friends and colleagues allow him to keep abreast of the most important news.
How the heck is checking multiple social networking sites, blogs and RSS feeds going to be any less distracting or addictive than having one place to check all your messages? Using multiple sites in such a manner means that every single message you send then becomes a mini adventure in itself, which is a surefire way to lose your train of thought. And since when was sending someone an email 'interrupting' them? Email will only interrupt you if you have a client open and set to alert you, or have been stupid enough to leave email enabled on your phone while doing whatever it is that requires you not to be interrupted.
which is totally what she said
I think this research should inform how mail clients (in particular those at work) are created, and how mail notifications are displayed to the user. In my own experience; I think that I've become more productive having turned off the audio notification when I get new mail, because when that bell chimes, by instinct if it were, I stop what I am doing and switch to my mail client, which definately upsets my train of thought for at least 60+ seconds. I've found the best method is to use the desktop notification feature with Outlook (we're an Exchange shop). I find I can quickly glance to see if the message is "worthy" of reading immediately, and get back to work without upsetting the thought at hand (I'm a programmer) and paying the penalty.
I have to say; I think the most absolute distracting thing is a phone ringing, beit mine or someone in the cube farm. When I recieve a call, my thought processes are rattled for several minutes and most of the time when I hang up I find I get up to get coffee, etc. Even hearing someone elses phone is is enough to break a train of thought.
I would give anything if there were some way to have a silent, maybe on screen or vibrating FOB or something, notification to pick up the phone; and the office made everyone use them.
At my last gig the helpdesk phone rang to our area incase the HD (2 people) were out or busy and it drove me absolutely nuts; and I am sure it cost me literally weeks worth of productivity.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Unless you are firefighter stopping in the middle of five-alarm fire, a cop, or an EMT, etc., I don't really think a distraction from work is "dangerous". Just an incendiary word thrown into the title to make people read the article or visit the site. Lame.
Visiting slashdot is now dangerous, too. Luckily, it is only sometimes lame.