Push email is a harbinger of the productivity apocalypse of 2012
UX Interaction Design February 8th, 2010
OK, so maybe it isn’t REALLY the end of the world. But the following article echoes the sentiment that the number and speed of modern communication channels reduce focus and enable procrastination.
Researchers at Loughborough University found that it took an average of 64 seconds for a person to recover their train of thought after interruption by email: those who check their email every five minutes waste 8.5 hours a week in this way. “There is no doubt that people use it as an avoidance tactic,” says Yoram Kalman, a post-doctoral researcher in online communication at the Open University of Israel. “The modern office worker works for an average of three minutes before an interruption occurs.”According to the psychiatrist Edward Hallowell, the stress of trying to process information as rapidly as it arrives is reducing us to quivering wrecks of indecision and demoralisation. As email becomes easier and quicker to use, we are finding it increasingly difficult to sift the relevant information.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/01/email-facebook
