Email has just recently become an essential part of my life. Now that I am in college it seems as though everything I do, and everything that I am involved in centers around my email. I am on my computer for a large part of my day and every time I start up the internet the first thing I do is check my email inbox. Most of the time I am able to just skim over the messages because I get a lot of mass emails and junk mail, but that is not always the case. Every once in a while I am required to carefully read and respond to emails from friends, family, and/or professors.
When I really stop and look at it I realize that email is taking over my life in a way. Like I said my whole life revolves around email now that I am at college. Generally speaking email does not bother me, but when I reflect on how much time I spend looking at email, responding to email, and sorting through the useful and non-useful messages I start to resent the process. I begin to think of all the time I spend on email and what I could be doing with that time. If it were not for email I could probably get to bed at least a little bit earlier every night, I could spend more time with friends, or I could read a book that I "haven't had time for". I love the advantages of email, but sometimes I think that I spend way too much time on it.
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I completely agree that the amount of time we spend on our email is very overwhelming. Most of the time I too do not realize how big of a part of my life email is. When I take the time to really think about how much of my time is spent on that instead of other important things, it really scares me. We all really need to take a moment every once in a while and think about how much our emailing really effects us in our relationships with others.
ReplyDeleteI have the same problem of always wanting to know if I have any new messages in my in-box. You could save a lot of time, however, by setting your e-mail as your homepage so you can quickly check if any new messages have arrived. That being said, you should probably try to check your e-mail only a few times a day as most of the messages you receive probably do not require an instant response. Such problems could especially worsen as you begin to mix school with work and you find yourself in the same position as the people mentioned in "Going Postal."
ReplyDeleteI agree that that email is definitely taking control. Especially now that I have email on my phone, I find that I'm answering and checking my emails wherever I go. However, I find it interesting that this is such a new development for you. I used email all the time even in high school. I used it for communicating to teachers, family members, classmates, and even for keeping school organizations together.
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