E-mail's greatest virtues are that it's cheap and fast. Those also are its biggest dangers.
These days, many of us are on their way to what Jeffrey Haas calls "infomania" - a disease that can drain your brain.
He writes about a recent British study that observed that excessive day-to-day use of technology such as cellphones, e-mail and instant messaging can be more distracting and harmful to your mental acuity than smoking cannabis.
The Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London conducted clinical trials with volunteer office workers to measure how a constant flow of messages and information affects a person's ability to focus on problem-solving tasks.
Instead of boosting productivity, the constant data stream seriously reduced the volunteers' ability to focus, even though they were not supposed to answer incoming messages and calls. The study reported that an average worker's functioning IQ falls 10 points when distracted by ringing telephones and incoming e-mails, more than twice the four-point drop seen following a 2002 Carleton University study on the impact of smoking marijuana.
Too much data clamors for conscious attention. It all wants to evolve into information and then knowledge. Just deciding what to ignore takes intellectual effort, and, inevitably, one's quality of work suffers.
And quality of life suffers, too. The study showed that 62% of adults are literally addicted to checking e-mail and text messages during meetings, in the evening and on weekends.
Half of workers respond to e-mails immediately or within 60 minutes, and one in five people are happy to interrupt a business or social meeting to respond to an e-mail or telephone message within 60 minutes.
The study warns of the abuse of always-on technology and calls this endemic condition infomania.
Columnists : Jack Trout
Full text at Forbes.com
These days, many of us are on their way to what Jeffrey Haas calls "infomania" - a disease that can drain your brain.
He writes about a recent British study that observed that excessive day-to-day use of technology such as cellphones, e-mail and instant messaging can be more distracting and harmful to your mental acuity than smoking cannabis.
The Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London conducted clinical trials with volunteer office workers to measure how a constant flow of messages and information affects a person's ability to focus on problem-solving tasks.
Instead of boosting productivity, the constant data stream seriously reduced the volunteers' ability to focus, even though they were not supposed to answer incoming messages and calls. The study reported that an average worker's functioning IQ falls 10 points when distracted by ringing telephones and incoming e-mails, more than twice the four-point drop seen following a 2002 Carleton University study on the impact of smoking marijuana.
Too much data clamors for conscious attention. It all wants to evolve into information and then knowledge. Just deciding what to ignore takes intellectual effort, and, inevitably, one's quality of work suffers.
And quality of life suffers, too. The study showed that 62% of adults are literally addicted to checking e-mail and text messages during meetings, in the evening and on weekends.
Half of workers respond to e-mails immediately or within 60 minutes, and one in five people are happy to interrupt a business or social meeting to respond to an e-mail or telephone message within 60 minutes.
The study warns of the abuse of always-on technology and calls this endemic condition infomania.
Columnists : Jack Trout
Full text at Forbes.com