Email Threat to Intelligence

[Jerry Raia]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.infoconomy.com/pages/news-and-gossip/group106006.adp' target='_blank'>http://www.infoconomy.com/pages/news-and-gossip/group106006.adp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Modern communication can have a massively adverse impact on users according to a study by King's College, London University, to the extent that it can actually lower IQ. The study, commissioned by IT powerhouse Hewlett-Packard found that extensive use of email and text messaging could cause IQ to drop by as much as 10%. To put that in context, regular cannabis use has been found to lower IQ on average by 4%."</i><br /><br />So if I check my email while using cannabis will I loose 14%? There goes my Mensa membership! :lol:

[Kris Kumar]

So Smartphones and other smart mobile devices do not really make us smart! :roll:

I agree. Too many E-Mails can be distracting for me.

Overall it depends on the line of work. For some it may be good. And for some not.

[Mike Temporale]

Too many E-Mails can be distracting for me.

True, it can be, but a distraction is much different than lowering your IQ. They're saying that emails make you stupid, and maybe they do. If the only emails you get are SPAM or jokes. However, there are a lot of intelligent uses for email. I read a number of newsletters in email; I get different reports and summaries, technical documentation, manuals, and much more.

I think these guys spent too much time with the cannabis and not enough time on the study. :roll:

[seaflipper]

Too many E-Mails can be distracting for me.

True, it can be, but a distraction is much different than lowering your IQ. They're saying that emails make you stupid, and maybe they do. If the only emails you get are SPAM or jokes. However, there are a lot of intelligent uses for email. I read a number of newsletters in email; I get different reports and summaries, technical documentation, manuals, and much more.

I think these guys spent too much time with the cannabis and not enough time on the study. :roll:

They may have spent way too much time with the cannabis, that's for sure, but if you think about it, what their research showed is not really anything that revolutionary or surprising:

it's not the content of the emails that is distracting, so it doesn't matter if it's spam or jokes or whatever, it's the interruption itself that is the distraction, and your IQ is lowered for only as long as the distraction continues.

To me, this makes total sense. Say you are working on a big project and you are concentrating on the project but you keep getting interrupted by emails, or the cell phone on your desk keeps beeping with new SMS's. Well, assuming you pay attention to that, you check the email or SMS and that takes you away from the project you were working. So your concentration is broken and then when you go back to working on the project you have to get back to where you were, which in some cases might require a few minutes to think back through the process of whatever it was you were working on. So certainly we all can see how these distractions slow you down, that's easy enough to see. But what I think these guys are hinting at is the possiblity of long term reductions in ability due to a continuous barrage of interruptions.

I guess it all has to do with how well you can multi task. Some jobs are fine with multi-tasking, others are not. And some pepople are good at multi tasking and others are not.

[Kris Kumar]

I guess it all has to do with how well you can multi task. Some jobs are fine with multi-tasking, others are not. And some pepople are good at multi tasking and others are not.

Very true.

I agree with everything you have said.