Email Addiction Runs Rampant 425
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."
How I deactivated my Hotmail account (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:The only distinction... (Score:2, Interesting)
"...in my view the only reason to make the distinction is to persecute somebody." -- Thomas Szasz [szasz.com]
Re:I can't check my email! (Score:3, Interesting)
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!
Re:I can't check my email! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.