There is a cyber stress epidemic that is greatly contributing to Adultitis.
Checking email.
How many times do you check your email in one day? In one hour?
Be honest!
Are you excessive?
Who isn’t, right?!
You just never know who might have some interesting or good news for you. You better check. It’s like when you were little and always wanted to be the one to go get the mail from the mailbox. Maybe three out of 365 days you’d actually receive mail, but it was still fun to check. That childlike optimism and curiousity can actually get you into trouble in the world of email. Email has a way of bringing stress on its own, without the excessive checking…
– Overflowing inboxes.
– Miscommunication due to the shortness and misinterpretation of the written word.
– Wasting minutes and hours of your life deleting spam.
– Waiting for someone to reply who never received your email for some reason. (Somewhere in cyber space there are lost emails floating randomly.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure what my life would even look like without email, but most days I am convinced that it doesn’t necessarily make my life easier.
A new study just released about “email stress” shows that
“struggling to cope with a deluge of emails is leaving staff tired, frustrated and unproductive.”
Some of the numbers from the study are fascinating and alarming…
34% of the 200 workers questioned admitted to checking their inbox every 15 minutes. And though 64% of the workers said they looked at their emails more than once an hour, monitoring software showed that it was more like 40 times an hour. 34% of the workers also said that they were stressed by the sheer number of emails that come in, and the need for a speedy reply.
64% of workers check their email 40 times an hour!?
YIKES.
No wonder email is stressful.
Assuming you are not one of the 64% who has a serious email addiction it is safe to assume that you probably, like me, overcheck your email, distracting you from the many tasks throughout your day. We all know about the problems with being interrupted in our work. It’s time to stop this madness. With all of this in mind, I am instituting the “You’ve Got Mail Cyber Challenge.” For one week you are only allowed to check and respond to email three times a day: morning, mid-day, and afternoon. No email in the evening. Instead- relax, read, have a conversation with a human, go on a walk, etc.
Can you do it?
If not, why not?
Are your excuses justified (life or death) or are they weak and derived from a secret addiction to the “Get Mail” button?
If you are struggling with a nasty case of Adultitis, this is a great first step. Give the challenge a try and let me know how it goes.
[tags]email, stress, Adultitis, You’ve Got Mail Cyber Challenge, cyber space[/tags]
I think that, in theory, we tend to look at email a little like how children view Christmas; something that can contain surprises that we will greatly enjoy. Instead, I’ve noticed that most emails tend to have nothing more in them than everyday stuff and junk mail, just like the regular mail does. I don’t ever remember a time when I opened my email and got that great suprise I was hoping to find. (Like a letter from a long lost friend or classmate.) I’ve found that if I only check my email once or twice a day, it saves me a lot of time and I’m really not missing anything anyway.
Check email less; live more! Yup, that’s good advice.
Vikki,
I loved your insight here on the childlike nature of checking to see if you got anything cool… I used to LOVE to get the mail for my parents when I was little. I’m not sure, I guess I thought maybe, just maybe, there would be something cool in there- like a card or box from someone. You and I both know those days were SUPER rare, but I do think that anticipation may carry over into our adult world with email. Thanks for sharing and for giving me a new way to look at it.