Here is an outline for a part of a training that I will be doing in the future:
ONLINE COMMUNICATION ADDICTION
Email Addiction
• The “bell” of Pavlov got replaced by “you’ve got mail” of AOL
• 2005 research: there are 190 million e-mail users worldwide
6 percent of them could have some form of e-mail addiction
Approximately 11 million e-mail junkies
• According to AOL Mail’s fourth annual Email Addiction Survey (2008)
- 46% of email users said they’re hooked on email
- 51% check their email four or more times a day
- One in five said they check their email more than 10 times a day.
- 20% of users said they have over 300 emails in their inboxes!
- 27% are so overwhelmed they’ve declared “email bankruptcy”
* Deleting all their email messages to start anew.
- 24% signing up for a new email address.
- 69% of email users have multiple email accounts
- 62% of at-work email users check email over a typical weekend
- Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) check email 5 or more times in a weekend.
- More than 50% check their email while on vacation.
o It’s even higher among mobile users
- 23% check their email as soon as they wake up
- 11% check their email when they get home from work (11%)
- Right after dinner (9%).
- 16% said they check their email from a mobile device
- 41% of mobile email users keep phones near them when they sleep
* So they can hear when a new email comes in.
- 49% of mobile email users check email when a new message arrives.
- 60% have never gone more than 5 days without checking email
- 17% can’t go more than one day without email.
- 11% hide their email behavior from their spouse or family member.
• Signs of Email Addiction
- Checking e-mail more than once an hour.
- Looking at every message that comes in,
as it comes in, either at or away from the office.
- Needing to respond to messages instantly or within minutes of arrival
- Interrupting real, in-person activities to check e-mail.
- When E-mail has, in some way, interfered with regular life activities
- Sleep loss, relationship troubles, stress
o Other Types of Online Communications
- Chat Rooms
- Instant Messaging
- Video Cam
* Skype
- $153 million in revenue 2009
- 445 million subscribers
- 23.6 billion skype-to-skype minutes in Q1, 2009
• Stickam
- Live-streaming video
- Featuring both professional and user-generated content
• Chat Roulette
- An updated version of an old-school chat room
- Randomly matches people up for video, audio, & text chat
- By clicking "next" and another randomly selected user appears
- Most “chats” last only a few seconds.
- About 35,000 people online at any given time
- 1.5 million users
