Too Much E-Mail Worse Then Smoking Pot
Filed under Tech Trends.
As is the case with most tech people, I sit behind a computer all day. In fact very often, most of the night as well, since I am self-employed. I probably get hundreds of emails a day, mostly spam but quite a few legitimate ones. That combined with the RSS Blog feeds I regularly monitor and my brain is a virtual ticker tape of information. So I’ve suspected for awhile that this constant barrage of information from all sides couldn’t possibly be healthy or productive but I couldn’t really think of anything to do about it because it’s important to my job that I stay connected. Plus I’m a tech-junkie so what the hell else am I gonna do?
Well, a new survey has just been released by a company in London that bascially concludes that this constant flow of distractions and interruptions can reduce productivity so much that it’s worse then smoking pot.
He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points — the equivalent to missing a whole night’s sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.
The survey was done on 1,100 people and came up with several observations about how often and when people check their e-mail or respond to messages, both voicemail and text.
So in an effort to increase my precious IQ and stop all of these dangerous distractions, I’ve decided to only check email at night and smoke pot all day.
Read more at CNN.com - E-mails�’hurt IQ more than pot’
Also at Technorati: marijuana, IQ, health and wellness, email, blog
On April 24th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
Years ago I used to be able to chat with 4-6 people separately on ICQ or AIM. As the conversations took a pause, I’d write in my journal or zip off an email to a friend.
Now, after being online for 8 years, I am hardly able to carry on 1 conversation, let alone 2.
If I attempt to talk to a couple friends at once I will invariably post a reply to the wrong person on the wrong chat application.
And now I am going to be thankful that my pals have good senses of humor.
Also: I now typo left and right, it takes me weeks sometimes to reply to email and I am always feeling guilty of not updating my website. Today has been a 7 hour long deal of sitting here trying to come up with a new design. I have finally given up.
I never had these problems when I was in the first several years online.
Anywho —
Cheers!