CMU School of Drama


Saturday, September 13, 2008

E-mail is as addictive as gambling

CNET News: "In a study last year, 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 e-mail. So people who check their e-mail every five minutes waste 8 1/2 hours a week figuring out what they were doing moments before."

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This article is mildly interesting (and I use the term loosely), but the title is extremely off-putting. After the title, there is no other mention of gambling in the article. A gambling addiction is a serious problem that can lead to mountains of debt. Being addicted email may cause people to waste time, but it isn't going to put you into financial troubles. There really is no justification at all in this comparison.

arosenbu said...

I couldn't believe there was a company who delayed processing by 5 mins. Yes, we may be hooked to our emails, but a lot of what we check so constantly is because we are expecting an answer to something. Also, I don't believe that email interrupts your train of thought unless it pops up while you are on your computer. So their hours are very off. Perhaps it interupts you 1 hour a week. BUt that's only if you let your email tell you when it's arrived. In which case, anything is interrupting, especially cell phones. Email is much less so than that, because you don't HAVE to check it when it comes. it waits until you have time for it.

weandme said...

I would agree with this article on many accounts, and I do think much time is wasted in that limbo phase of deciding what to do and being distracted by email. But, I think like anything it is good in moderation. Moderation is key, because like most technological gadgets, you don't realize how absorbed you get into them and how exhausted they make you. People weren't meant to always look at screens and talk on the phone and listen to their ipod, it's good to just stare at the sky and smell the flowers for a while.

Anonymous said...

It was interesting to think about checking emails and im as like gambling. It is true that many times i check email or more often facebook, just to see if there is anything, usually it is unimportant, or junk. Though I have found that even when there is something that is very important i generally only then have more to do, there is not a real sense of enjoyment from more work.

Dave said...

"it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by e-mail" seems a little long... and not everybody is checking their email constantly. I do get emails forwarded to my phone, but I don't read them the second I get them.

Anonymous said...

hahahaha, that is really funny. I'm sure that we do waste an average of that amount of time after checking emails every day but hey it's the world we live in unfortunately. It's also really ironic that a teacher posted this on his blog when a crew head told me today to try to check my email at least 3 or 4 times every day this week. This is also really funny when applied to the iphone. I want someone to calculate the amount of wasted time a week on that.

David Beller said...

In a world where we can now have almost fully functioning computers in our cell phones, I believe that this is becoming even more of a problem. I have an iPhone, and so now I am connected to e-mail where ever I am, and however distracting it might be, I believe that the same or more time is saved by having nearly infinite information available anywhere ant your fingertips.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of this video I watched last semester in Production Resource Management about keeping your inbox empty. He mentioned that you shouldn't check your e-mail more than once an hour, if that because it destroys your thought processes and just keeps preventing you from getting things done. It's really hard when you have an application that corrals all your e-mail to one place and immediately tells you when you have something. I've gotten better but it's still hard to fight that 3 NEW MESSAGES alert.

MichaelSimmons said...

I can totally understand that. I'm a smoker, and before I go to bed at night, I never feel the need to smoke a cigarette, but I always HAVE to check my email, or else i can't go to sleep.

Jacob Jimenez said...

Those numbers were pretty interesting. It reflects what Joe was saying in class today about time management and checking emails. However, I do think that ones train of thought may be retained in checking email if it is relevant to the work you are currently doing. Also, one should not stop their work to check email unless if they are expecting a certain email. Otherwise, they should only check it periodically.

Anonymous said...

it is amazing how email has consumed our lives in the last 6 or so years. like with anything that we have at our fingertips, it is our responsibility to monitor ourselves. this article does bring up a few good points, but in the end it just depends on how we want email to effect us.