A new survey has found that Americans are – by their own admission – more addicted to email than ever.
The email addiction manifests in some interesting ways, including that more than 25% of all Americans admit to taking their email to bed with them – either in the form of laptops in bed, checking email just before they go to sleep – or even falling asleep with their Blackberries in their hand. In fact, nearly half of those with portable devices like Blackberries say that they keep their device near the bed so that they can hear if they get a new email in the middle of the night.
Explains a spokesperson for America Online (AOL), who sponsored [destination content has been removed at other end :~( ], “E-mail is becoming more and more accessible, and people continue to take advantage of that. As the survey data shows, portable devices – like e-mail itself – are becoming more prevalent and easier to use. Because you can access e-mail services like AOL from virtually anywhere and on almost any wireless device, it is easier to stay connected to work, home, family and friends through e-mail – and instant messaging as well – than any other form of communication.”
Forty-three percent of those surveyed – more than 4,000 Americans across the country, ages 13 and older – who have portable devices such as Blackberries or Sidekicks said that they “keep the device nearby when they are sleeping to listen for incoming mail.”
One in four admit to taking their laptop to bed with them to check email one last time before going to sleep, and a whopping 59% of people with portable email devices admit that they check their email the moment that a new message comes in.
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But perhaps the most interesting information to come out of the survey is from where people read and send email! Says the survey:
– 12% of people check email in church
– 37% of people admit to checking email while they are driving
– and 53% of people admit to checking email in the bathroom!
The next time you get an email from someone with a Blackberry, you may want to ask them where they are. Then again, you may not.
So, where is the strangest or most interesting place in which you have checked, sent, or received email?
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One in four admit to taking their laptop to bed with them to check email one last time before going to sleep, and a whopping 59% of people with portable email devices admit that they check their email the moment that a new message comes in.
Reading this, I am reminded of nothing so much as the Borg – dependant on the Hive for the reassurance that they exist.
The irony is that all this constant contact is so often used to split attention between the incoming message on the device and whoever is in fornt of the user. A pity: intimacy and full attention to the person you’re with is hard enough to achieve and now we are practicing how to avoid precisely that which we actually seek….