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Email overload and email addiction

One of the major contributors to email overload is our propensity to email addiction (and social networking in general).  Whenever I am with friends who have children (and friends) who are predominantly from Generation Y and younger the cry is why can’t they detach themselves from their mobile communications devices (eg iphone, Blackberry etc).  Some say that even over family meals their siblings are still checking their phones and it drives them mad.

My own research (see for example Inbox-Outbox 2007 survey and Why are we so bad at switching off), and that of others suggest that we do indeed suffer from a bad case of email addiction.  The more emails you send and the quicker you respond, the more you receive?  How can we reduce email addiction?  Here are three tips.

1. Go cold turkey- switch it off, revert to a conventional mobile phone out of normal office hours.
2. Check your emails at set times and reward yourself when you keep to those times.
3. Give people a reason and a reward if they to talk to you rather than email you.

I will re-visit overcoming email addiction as it is such a prolific problem.  Meanwhile, for more immediate tips take a look at ‘Brilliant Email‘.

Tags: email addiction, email overload

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