you've got mail

I just got one of these Blackberry phones that have all the bells and whistles. I am connected at all times. I can do it all, email, text message, IM, web browsing, contacts, calendar, and even pong! It beeps at me every five minutes or so when a new email comes in. You don't realize how much stinking email you get until something beeps at you every single time you get one!
I just read an article in Relevant Magazine about our email habits. It said:

Email traffic over the World Wide Web has grown from 5.1 billion messages a day in 2000 to 135.6 billion messages daily in 2005. Worldwide email traffic is projected to grow from 171 billion messages per day in 2006, to 331 billion messages per day by 2009.
Here's a look at the frequency of our email habits:

60% check email while on vacation
41% check email in the morning before going to work
25% never go more than a few days without checking email
4% check email while in the bathroom

I can say that thanks to my new Blackberry I am one of the proud, the few, the ones able to answer email while on the pot.

Speaking of pot, I remembered reading about another study on the effects of email on our brains. It was a research study by Hewlett Packard UK. Here is a small excerpt of their study:

Info Mania, is it reducing your IQ?
"The abuse use of “always-on” office technology has led to a nationwide state of “Info-Mania” where UK workers are literally addicted to checking messages. Mobile technology offers massive productivity benefits in the hands of those who know how to use it, but irresponsible use means that workers are not seeing the benefits they should.

New research, commissioned on behalf of technology experts Hewlett Packard, reveals that 62% of adults are addicted to checking messages out of office hours and whilst on holiday. Half of workers will respond to an email immediately or within 60 minutes and one in five people are ‚“happy‚” to interrupt a business or social meeting to respond to an email or telephone message.

Perhaps more worrying is the effect of Info-Mania on workers IQ. Far from making workers more productive, the findings of a new scientific experiment reveal that those who “over juggle‚” and who constantly disrupt their day to read and respond to messages reduce their IQ significantly. In a series of tests carried out by Dr Glenn Wilson, Reader in Personality at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, an average worker’s functioning IQ falls ten points when distracted by ringing telephones and incoming emails. This drop in IQ is more than double the four point drop seen following studies on the impact of SMOKING MARIJUANA!!!"

At least email won't give you the munchies.