Online Communication Addiction

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