Scrolling away our lives

Some alarming facts about email or what I call – “Scrolling away our lives” 

1. The act of just receiving a notification, even if you don’t reply to it, is enough to severely distract you. 
2. One in ten of UK adults feel more productive when they are offline, rising to 15% for 18- to 34-year-olds; and 16% say they feel less distracted offline. 
3. Checking work emails decreases your focus, as well as making you more stressed. 
4. An ‘always on’ culture with high expectations to monitor and respond to emails during non-work time may prevent employees from ever fully disengaging from work, leading to chronic stress and emotional exhaustion. 
5. Email occupies 23% of the average employee’s workday, and that average employee checks his or her email 36 times an hour.

Shifting our attention from one task to another, as we do when we’re monitoring email while trying to read a report or craft a presentation, disrupts our concentration and saps our focus.  

Each time we return to our initial task, we use up valuable cognitive resources reorienting ourselves. And all those transitional costs add up. 

Research shows that when we are deeply engrossed in an activity, even minor distractions can have a profound effect. Regaining our initial momentum following an interruption can take, on average, upwards of 20 minutes.  

There is a vast body of research and experiments that all conclude are more productive, more focused and less stressed when they reduce use of email.