You’d be forgiven for thinking that email had been around forever, but it wasn’t long ago that the fax machine and the common letter were still the main forms of communication. I read on a colleague’s blog that she remembers when she started work she had to share an email account with another employee. When I started working in PR in the ancient days of 1999 I spent most of my first internship standing by the fax machine sending information to journalists and clients. Hard to believe in a world dominated by online communications with email now the mainstay for us all. Why am I talking about email? Well, some research has been released by a guy called Dr Thomas Jackson and he works at Loughborough University in the UK, according to him email is a huge distraction that beaks our train of thought. He has some interesting findings and reckons that it takes us over a minute to get our concentration back after we’ve received an email which equates to eight and a half hours a week of “what was I doing again..” type thoughts for those of us that check our email every five minutes.
MyTake – I’m not sure what concentration is any more! I get “interrupted” by emails, phone calls, Instant messages, tweets, questions….the lot. I think that they average person has a more fluid sense of concentration that is more outcome based, i.e. what are the tasks at hand and when do I need to achieve them by. But, I am not a doctor and Thomas Jackson is, so check out his website for tips on managing email. Just a thought though Doc, what about a study looking at instant messaging and micro-blogging?
