4th of 7 Reasons why email on your smartphone might not be so smart after all

Reason #4: Addictive behaviours and short-term thinking

Receiving email on a smartphone is another source of interruption and reinforces the addiction to checking new messages.

Each time we check a new text or email message or click like on Facebook we get a small dopamine hit – the chemical reward produced by our own brain. It feels exciting. It feels good. We get some short term gratification. 

We soon become addicted to this quick ‘high’ and begin to shrink back from the mentally challenging, laborious and complex tasks which actually increase our cognitive abilities and expand our understanding and insights.

Email interruptions on smartphones drives multi-tasking behaviours. But research out of Stanford University shows that people who spend a lot of time multi-tasking are particularly poor at managing their workload.

And another study showed that teenage girls who multi-task on multiple devices are stunted in their social and emotional development compared with girls who focus more on talking to friends face-to-face.

Have you experienced any of this for yourself?

All the best!

Steuart