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Inbox Zero vs. Inbox 5,000: A Unified Theory
How is it that some people remain calm as they have many unread messages in their inboxes, while others can't sit still knowing that there are unread emails and messages? One 2012 study found that 70 percent of work emails were handled within six seconds of their arrival.
So what puts people in one camp or the other? Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at University of California has explored just this sort of question. When someone drops everything just to get an unread count back to zero, productivity might be taking a hit. "It takes people on average about 25 minutes to get back to a task when they get interrupted," she says. It often takes so long to get back on task because the project you start doing after handling an email often isn't the same as the one you were already doing.
A few years ago, she ran a study in which office workers were cut off from using email for one workweek and were equipped with heart-rate monitors; on average, keeping away from emails significantly reduced their stress levels.
After interviewing several people about their relationship with email, Mark has noticed that, for some people, email is an extension of having control. One subject, she said, told her, "The sound of the bell control my life." Compulsively checking email or compulsively clearing out queues of unread emails can be a form of get some of that control back. Mark said, "So I might say that those who would like to check email may be easier to feeling out of control and in missing out information."
I also think there's another urge that fuels the feeling that comes with unread messages: Immediately reading is just like checking a box on a to-do list and clearing out unread stories. "In other words, the popularity of these behaviors lies in the false belief of progress that they bring. Few tasks can be as neat and immediate as deleting an email. For that reason, neurotically(神经质地)tidy people like me can't help but attend to emails the moment they arrive and then they feel they have completed something."
Jamie Madigan, a psychologist who writes about video games, thinks the arrival of a notification might be similar to the accumulation of virtual reward. Email, in other words, might not be just a task, but a game. "Designers of apps for the Web, phones, and other devices figured this out early on," he says. "In the case of our phones, we see, hear, or feel a notification sound show up, we open the app, and we are rewarded with something we like: a message from a friend, a like, or whatever."
lan Bogost, a professor of interactive computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, offers a theory. "What if actually there are people who care about technology as a part of their identity, and people who don't?" I think his point might be the reason for a part of the difference.
| Inbox Zero vs. Inbox 5,000: A Unified Theory | |
| Introduction | Some people may unread messages, while others may to emails immediately. |
| of handling emails | Checking emails, which seems a minor to their task, takes longer to concentrate again than expected yet. |
| Being cut off from using emails may people of stress to some extent. | |
| Reasons for checking emails | Unread information rules certain people's life. Checking emails, in a sense, their desire to regain that control. |
| Immediately reading give people a sense of and the wrong conception that of progress they create. | |
| After reading emails, the sense of conclusion may have great for those neurotically tidy people. | |
| The feeling of being rewarded by others is also a factor how they deal with emails. | |
| Conclusion | That people may think of technology as a part of their identity may for the difference. |
