That winking inbox is driving us to distraction

Nick Curtis it’s bec ause I’m experiencing that powerful feeling of validation one gets when something you believe to be true but can’t prove is echoed by someone else with an impressive title.

And Cooper’s news arrived at an apt time. I happen to have an old work email address on my phone, and by complete coincidence yesterday I didn’t look at it at all. This morning, there were 98 messages on it. Guess how many needed my attention? Precisely none. Not one. But it still took a souldeadening 10 minutes to scan and delete the damn things.

I’m not a Luddite, honest, and I’d wager

Shutting down servers is a denial of free will that will make the addicts resentful

the professor isn’t either: he notes that email is useful for the exchange of documents and for establishing a chain of evidence (making it easier to prove when someone has screwed up, though he omits that bit). But its selective usefulness has blinded us to the fact that it’s a constant distraction, the winking inbox alert an insidious presence that’s always at the edge of our consciousness. I t ’s a l e p e r ’s b e l l w e m a k e for ourselves.

But shutting down servers or instituting bans is a cop-out, a pusillanimous denial of free will that will merely make the addicts resentful. Rather, each of us should ask ourselves if each message is really necessary: whether, given the choice, you’d write it out longhand, commun icate it face-to-face, or just forget it.

If the first, then send it; if the second, have that conversation; if the third … well, you get the idea. Let’s start t o d a y. W h e t h e r you are celebrating or commiserating about, you know, that other thing that’s been going on, this could be the start of a bright new dawn.