
Have you heard of the ob/ob mouse?
It’s this little chunky fella:

The ob/ob mouse has a gene mutation. It lacks the hormone leptin which controls hunger.
As a result, ob/ob mice are compulsive eaters – hence the name (ob is short for obese.)
Seeing their poor little bloated bodies, I was reminded of how we compulsively consume information these days.
Like the ob/ob mouse, we don’t seem to have an off switch. We gorge and gorge, scrolling, clicking and viewing until it makes us feel anxious and overwhelmed.
But our appetites don’t diminish. One study suggests that we spend 82 hours per week – or 69% of our waking hours – consuming information. In developed markets it’s even higher.
And there’s nothing we love to consume more than email.
We love to complain about the hundreds of emails in our inbox distracting us, and yet we can’t stop ourselves from checking them constantly.
Why is this?
Yes, we might worry that we’ll miss an important email from a client or senior manager.
But it’s not the whole picture.
Studies show we get the same addictive hit when we open emails as we do from pulling the lever of a slot machine.
And it’s all down to a psychological phenomenon called ‘random reward.’
With a slot machine, you might get a few bad runs before eventually – ker-ching! Payout time!
And it’s the same with email. You might open ten dry, dull ones… but suddenly there’s a compliment or a piece or good news that makes you crave more.
I’ll be writing more about how to tackle email overwhelm over the coming weeks, but for now I’m wondering:
Are we really as overwhelmed by email as we think? Or are we just ob/ob mice – compulsive eaters?
What do you think? I’d love to know.
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