Study: E-mail is a distraction and can be addictive like slot machines

September 12, 2008

You’ve got distraction! The The Sydney Morning Herald ran story on 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 1/2hours 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.”

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Comments

One Response to “Study: E-mail is a distraction and can be addictive like slot machines”

Koka Sexton on September 19th, 2008 12:35 pm

I am completely addicted to email. I have put myself on email free times of the day where I shut down outlook all together. With work stacking up distraction like email an IM just tend to get in the way. My addiction to technology is worse than a smoking habit.