Are you addicted?
9/19/2007 12:41:00 PM
helensimpson
0 Posts
A new program has been devised in the U.S. to help those addicted to email.
It is about time though, some of the addicts using the recovery program could
not walk past a computer without checking their emails. Some would wait for
emails and if one didn’t show up for several minutes they would email
themselves. Could you be an addict? Here are some signs.
1) When you check your emails and there are no new ones, you feel
actually depressed
No one has emailed you! That must mean for the last 22 minutes you have been
cyber-invisible. To get over this feeling of depression you email yourself or
you read spam. If you’re feeling really insecure you can always Google yourself
and feel safe in the knowledge that you have 456 listing under your name.
2) You refresh constantly
Isn't it great how someone can send you an email but it needs to be coaxed
into your in box? Therefore there is the refresh button. Just when you despair
that no one has emailed you for 12 and a half minutes, you refresh and find
someone has!
3) You get up in the middle of the night to check your email
Time zones are a godsend for the email addicted. If you can't sleep you can
always email a pal in Hong Kong at 2am and they will be at their desk, awake
and looking for distractions. If you have a BlackBerry, you can sleep with it
and that way when a new email comes in, you are woken up. Thank god for
technology.
4) You go to the pub, drink too much then go home and email
You've already told all your mates at the pub that you love them. And to the
girl who didn't ask you to her party at couple of years ago. In the spirit of
truth you tell her while you thought she was a complete brat for years and
years, you were wrong and now you love her. Time to share the love you feel via
email. You get home and turn on that computer. Why is the room spinning? Your friends
on the other side of the world are just getting to work now. Won't it be great
when they turn on their computer and get an email from you saying, "You're
beautiful, love you to bits..." or even better a really honest email.
5) Your ethical dilemmas revolve solely around email
In ethics seminars across university campuses they are no longer asking is
there such as universal truth, or is there a fixed concept of good? No, they
are asking themselves the things that really matter: is it ethical to BCC? What
are the rules with forwarding on a personal email from a friend to another
friend? Should you chuck a X (kiss) on the end of an email if you are a
straight man and you are emailing another man?
6) Your most paranoid dilemmas revolve around email
If it's not your BlackBerry waking you up in the middle of the night it's
the sudden fear that when you emailed your best friend about being in love with
Matt and she mustn't tell anyone, that you accidentally sent it to Man! Oh crap!
Matt who works in your office but doesn't know you exist until he receives an
email from you saying: "Today he is wearing the blue tie, and when I
walked past his desk, he looked at me, and I definitely felt a vibe." Oh
God, Matt knows. How mortifying! You
imagine all the ways of retrieving the message. Bribing the helpdesk (they like
lolli pops and people that speak to them like they are human beings), logging
in as Matt before he gets to work and
deleting the message (password -- matt -- all lower case). You bolt into work,
its 4am and check your sent messages. Phew. You did not send the message to Matt.
When this paranoia hits you 4 times a week you should consider visiting the
clinic for people with email problems.
7) Old emails amuse you
You forward them to your pals when you are bored When you are having one of
those awful days where nobody is emailing you, it’s time for drastic measures.
You will have to go into the archives and somewhere in your sent email archive
is the entire story of your friends break up with Bill last year. You counseled
her via email. Her: it's grim, grim, grim. You: bugger, bugger, bugger. You
find the hundreds of emails relating to the event in your archived emails and
send them to her so you can have a good laugh about how stupid she was back
then. That's why email is wonderful -- you can revisit your former self by
putting in a key word search.
8) You email the person next to you
Why talk when you can email? Share the love --stop talking and start typing.
9) Email kisses perplex you
When a hot guy sends you an email that down the bottom has a flurry of
kisses, well that's a lovely feeling -- but when your boss does the same thing,
it's all so wrong. Is one kiss at the bottom of an email more meaningful than 10?
And what does it mean when people you don't really know, like your dentist or a
PR firm, send you email kisses? Is that sexual harassment? Are kisses kosher
among work colleagues or in a job application? If these questions keep you up
at night then it’s time to ask yourself the world's most awful question (one
that you thought you'd never have to ask): Are kisses meaningless now?
10) You email yourself
Recipes, music lyrics, interesting newspaper articles. You see something you
like, copy the link and send yourself an email. And that way when you are
having one of those days where nobody loves you and nobody emails you, at least
you have emails from yourself. Because you should always love you.