Addicted To Email?

July 17, 2002

(CBS) In the six seconds it takes to read this sentence, nearly one million emails will land in email boxes around the world. We're training a generation of compulsive email checkers.

Regina Lewis, AOL's online adviser and author of the best-selling book "Wired in a Week," visits The Early Show to show us ways to manage the volume.

Some interesting facts about email:

• According to the Gartner Study Group, one in four Americans check his email every weekend.
  
  
• The Center for Internet Studies in West Hartford, Conn., believes that 6 percent of Americans can be classified as compulsive email checkers.
  
  
• On workdays, 53 percent of business users check email six or more times a day, while 34 percent of users check email constantly throughout the day, Gartner reports.
  
  
• Number of times "You've Got Mail" is heard per day: 63 million.
  
  
• Communications AOL sends per day (email & IM): 1.78 billion
  
  
• Forty-two percent our of the more than 100 million American email users, check their e-mail on vacation, according to Gartner.
  
  
• Fifty-four percent have sent or received email announcing major personal news like birth of baby, wedding or new job., according to an AOL/RoperStarch Cyberstudy.
  
  
• The following is Regina’s look at email habits. They may be more telling than you think.
  

You Can't Seem to Press SEND:
In person, you blurt something out and that's it, you can't get it back. Crafting a message online gives you the luxury of fine-tuning what you want to say. Sometimes for perfectionists, it means laboring over just the right words or saying just the right things.

If you find it stressful to press the SEND button, you might find it a tremendous relief to know there's an UNSEND button. As long as the recipient on the same email system has not read the email yet, you can unsend, or get it out of their box. They'll be no trace of it and they'll never know. If you find yourself excessively pressing the UNSEND button, you may be unnecessarily second guessing yourself.


You've become 'Tone Deaf'
Tone of voice doesn't translate well online. It also takes a little while to get used to someone's email style or the time it generally takes them to reply. Sometimes they may reply quickly, sometimes it may take days. It probably has more to do with their schedule than anything else.

At the top of the email you can usually see who sent it and how they sent it. Don't expect a long, loving email from a cell phone. With more and more mobile communications, there's a trend toward shorter messages. Also, if you're not sure what a person means by what they're saying, ask them to clarify before you jump to conclusions. The use of emoticons (smileys) and signatures can go a long way.


You're Hiding
Do you avoid person-to-person contact and only keep in touch with family and friends through e-mail? Hey, without question, it's easy and convenient. But, it can be easy to hide, especially when times are tough. I had a friend who went through a lot of life changes and every time you emailed her she'd say things were great, but she stopped answering the phone for a while, and constantly turned down invitations to get together. Finally, a light bulb went on and a group of us showed up at her house and said, "Hey, level with us... what's up?"


You feel crowded
Your time online is YOUR time. If someone repeatedly bombards you the second you log on, you might consider blocking them from sending you instant messages. You can also block them from sending you email. In some cases - like a big break-up when you never, ever want to hear from someone again - you can change your email address and not let them know the new one. If that seems too harsh or is more than is called for, here's a more subtle strategy, you can block yourself from appearing on their buddy list. This will at least remove the prompt they're getting which indicates you're online and triggers them to contact you.


Email-Free Vacations are not Stress-Free
If your email is all you can think about when you are lying on the beach, you've wrecked your vacation. Some people may brag they "didn't check their email for a week" while on vacation; for others, it's not worth the stress, and the solution is easy: check your email! Bring a laptop, cell phone, PDA or mobile communicator on vacation and allow yourself 10 minutes of email time a day, just to clear your mind. You can log on as a guest from any computer anywhere with an Internet connection. If something big comes up that you need to deal with, you will! Otherwise, open and close them. Keep replies to the bare minimum or you are just begging people to contact you on vacation.

On the technology side, you can also consider automating a message indicating you're away and may not be checking email as regularly, so people don't have mail sitting in your email box and are given an alternate option. Do this, just as you would change your voicemail answering machine.


Are you There Yet?
Patience has never been more virtuous. Waiting for that special someone to call or write has never been easy. Some things never change. Email has probably accelerated the courting process, for better or worse. People used to say, "I haven't gotten a letter in weeks." Then, it was "he hasn't called in days."

Now, it's "he hasn't emailed or IMed all morning." Don't make yourself crazy or be too aggressive online - it can be misconstrued. Dating aside, if you know someone is waiting to hear from you and you don't have time for a long exchange, sometimes buying a little time is the way to go. A quick email or IM that says, "Hi. More later... " will suffice. Also, if you're anxious because someone hasn't written you back, check the status of sent mail. Maybe you're up in arms for no reason. Maybe the person you sent the IM to just stepped away from his computer. Status icons can be very helpful here.


You Sweat the CC:'s
Sometimes people get caught up in who's on the email distribution list and who isn't. One way to cut down on getting a million replies, or email "swirl," is to keep the number of cc:'s in check. Also if you were cc:'d on something, don't feel compelled to REPLY ALL when writing back. If everyone does, you're all in deep.


Backwards is best
Great trick. Be sure to read your email from the bottom up. This way if there's a chain of responses you're not responding to - something that's already been resolved or answered - you won't seem like you're five steps behind.


The rule of three
It's often referred to as the rule of three. While email is great for getting an issue or an idea out there, if it requires ongoing discussion and more than three exchanges back and forth, it's probably time to pick up the phone.


When in doubt, don't do it by email
There are some things experts in other fields say you should never do by email, including arguing, firing or breaking up with someone. If you're really heated about something, here's a tip you'll surely thank me for. Sometime, somewhere, draft the email, get it out of your system and send it to yourself! Invariably, if you wait 24 hours for the dust to settle, you'll probably be really grateful you never sent it.
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