The dangers of email
The Sydney Morning Herald has a good article on the dangers of email. Click for ‘Email becomes a dangerous distraction’smh.com.au
The article reports:
Dr Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University, England, found that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email
This adds up: we can waste as much as 8 1/2 hours a week if we answer our email as soon as we get it.
I like the reason they offer for why people might feel compelled to check their email every five minutes:
Tom Stafford, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield, England, and co-author of the book Mind Hacks, believes that the same fundamental learning mechanisms that drive gambling addicts are also at work in email users. “Both slot machines and email follow something called a ‘variable interval reinforcement schedule’ which has been established as the way to train in the strongest habits,”
Well, it made me giggle.
Now I don’t get any pleasure from email at all. In fact, I avoid it as much as possible. But then maybe I’m just a Misanthrope.
This whole ‘dangers of email’ thing got me thinking about Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero idea: 43 Folders Series: Inbox Zero
Here’s his video (hour long Google talk about Inbox Zero)
Via Slashdot Slashdot | Why Email Has Become Dangerous
