tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2777378.post-1138567558382862372006-01-29T10:07:00.000-08:002006-01-29T12:45:58.450-08:00Email helps link the global brainIn a thoughtful <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/opinion/29sun2.html">editorial </a>in today's New York Times, Verlyn Klinkenborg describes his addiction to email. Rather than ranting about the email flood, as email volumes these days would justify, he compares it to the postal service and examines how it's all affected his life. I especially like this paragraph:<blockquote>I think of e-mail as a continuing psychology experiment that studies the effect on humans of abrupt, frequently repeated stimuli — often pleasurable, sometimes not, but always with the positive charge that comes from seeing new mail in the inbox. So far, the experiment has revealed, in me, the synaptic responses of a squirrel. It is a truism of our time that we now have shorter attention spans than ever before. I don't think that is true. What we have now are electronic media that can pulse at the actual rate of human thought. We have the distinct discomfort of seeing our neural pace reflected in the electronic world around us.</blockquote>I often find myself checking for mail when I shouldn't be, because it feels like looking for gifts. Every now and then, little gems drop in there and I get an endorphin rush. I wonder what paths are being reinforced or built in my brain.<br /><br />In the spirit of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifehack">lifehacking</a>, it would be useful to have an email client that would honor "office hours" automatically. Finer-grained controls would put only personal messages in front of me during certain periods, or only messages from certain people (related to the A-list task at hand!).<br /><br />I do know that I'm in better touch over email than ever before with other media. It's overwhelming often, but deeply connecting.Jerryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10133706338739243869noreply@blogger.com