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FancyEnglish    50 % Of Population Addicted To E-mail     回新闻首页

July 30, 2008 

AOL Survey: 50 percent of population addicted to e-mail July 30th, 2008 @ 4:51pm By Keith McCord Are you an e-mail addict? Do you check your e-mail more than 10 times a day? Do you have multiple e-mail accounts? If you answered "yes" to any of these, don't panic! You're not alone! At your desk, both home and at work, on your phone and on other electronic gadgets, it's easy to stay in touch these days. For many people, staying in touch has almost become an obsession. In AOL's latest survey on e-mail usage, 50 percent admit that they're addicted to their e-mail. "Well, in Salt Lake City, 46 percent of people self-described themselves that way, which is a pretty big number. Now, we're using the term ‘addict' loosely, but I think it's people saying, ‘I really don't have a handle on this,'" said AOL consumer adviser Regina Lewis. We chatted with a few people in downtown Salt Lake, and some admitted that they, too, have been bitten by the e-mail bug. Kyrstie Harris said she checks her e-mail roughly 20 times a day. "I'm on it all the time," she said. "All the time, same thing. I have my BlackBerry, and I'm on it constantly," Nate Barnson said. The AOL survey of about a thousand people also showed some unusual trends. For example, some people regularly check e-mails in the middle of the night. Others check them in the bathroom. "Fifty-nine percent from the bathroom. I think that's the BlackBerry effect," Lewis said. Lewis also listed several other favorite places people check their e-mail. "Fifty percent while driving, which can be dangerous; 15 percent in a religious service. That's sneaking a peek at church," she said. Nineteen percent of those surveyed in Salt Lake say they choose their vacation locations based on whether there was e-mail service. "I think I've checked my e-mail on a gondola skiing. I've checked my e-mail in a taxi cab," Eric Munson said. So, what does this say about us? Well, it's a sign of the times: we're more connected; we can stay in touch at will. "But now we've got to, like anything else, figure out what moderation is and how to make it work for us," Lewis said. Here are some suggestions about getting your e-mail life under control: Use the "Rule of 3s" -- if you make more than 3 responses to a specific e-mail message, you're wasting time. If you're getting too much junk e-mail, consider starting fresh with a new account. The average person has three e-mail accounts. For more information on AOL's e-mail survey, click the related link to the right of the story.