my name is jan and i am an emailaddict1 min read

email can make you stupid – carrie mclaren’s (of stay free!) rant about the effects of email.
Emails ‘pose threat to IQ’ – the guardian article he quoted about the study.

“The distractions of constant emails, text and phone messages are a greater threat to IQ and concentration than taking cannabis, according to a survey of befuddled volunteers.

Doziness, lethargy and an increasing inability to focus reached “startling” levels in the trials by 1,100 people, who also demonstrated that emails in particular have an addictive, drug-like grip.

Respondents’ minds were all over the place as they faced new questions and challenges every time an email dropped into their inbox. Productivity at work was damaged and the effect on staff who could not resist trying to juggle new messages with existing work was the equivalent, over a day, to the loss of a night’s sleep.”

this is why i usually enjoy spending a few weeks a year up here in the mountains where only a lousy, whiney, miserly 56k dial up line connects me to the interweb… the first few days up here can be kind of tough, but after that i am quite happy to fall into a two-times-a-day online rhythm. same with gprs. i am actually quite happy that it is still so totally overpriced, because otherwise i would check email all the time via my mobile phone.

hoppla. thanx to my rss reader i just per chance saw this update over at stay free!… outch.
UPDATE: This “study” is based on very sketchy research and appears to be part of a publicity campaign by Hewlett Packard. Thanks to the Daily Heights for setting us straight.

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