“Did I get email? When’s the last time I checked? Did anybody write me a Facebook message? I wonder if my order was shipped yet? Has anybody written on my Myspace wall? Has ______ emailed me back yet? I still have to confirm plans with ______ for Friday. Did I get any new emails in the last couple of minutes?”

This might be the thought process of somebody suffering from PIU or Problematic Internet Usage from the addictive activity of email checking. There is a certain thrill, for some people, of receiving email—it means that you are popular and loved by others, especially now that facebook and myspace email all of its new notifications to one’s email account, thereby linking the two addicting behaviors. Receiving email also means that you are important in today’s attempting-to-be-paperless world because email is such a common form of communication.

PIU can usually be indicated by two factors: 1) internet usage is so high that daily life is always interfered (for example relationships, work, schoolwork, etc.), and 2) the addicted user is addicted and cannot stop performing this behavior easily. People tend to become addicted because of the concept that once they check their email, and they see X amount of new messages, this is a reward and they want to be rewarded more and more often, so they check their email more and more often, hoping for just another email.

PIU from email checking can interfere with daily life because it can affect academic or occupational performance. If I spend all of my time checking email, perhaps as a form of procrastination, I will not be able to finish all of my homework in a flowing manner, and I would keep pushing it off until I just checked my email one more time. It creates an inefficiency of productivity because of all of these email checking interruptions. It’s not that people spend hours checking their email (unless they read all of their spam mail, too), it’s the fact that people are compulsive about checking their email. Addicted email checkers lack control of their strong desire to check their email, but they probably will not spend longer than they had planned (unless they had a huge paper due the next day, and they really did not want to write their paper…).

The same factors as Caplan’s model probably do not directly apply to the PIU of email checking because addictive email checkers are not usually depressed or lonely; they could be, but not necessarily. Caplan’s model doesn’t really apply because the online interaction of email checking probably isn’t the same as the online interaction as playing in a MUD or chatting on AIM. What creates this difference—the fact that email is not a synchronous form of communication. Email checkers may hold negative perceptions about their social competence, therefore choosing email as their sole form of communication and these individuals might prefer “online interaction” because it’s less threatening (I don’t think they can feel more efficacious because an email is usually attached to one person), and this preference for online interaction could lead to compulsive online interaction thereby worsening their problems. Caplan’s model could apply to this email checking PIU but not as much as a person with a different PIU (say, MUD). It’s also hard to say that Caplan’s model would apply because the “interaction” of email is not as constant as communication in a synchronous online space.

Email is becoming an extremely popular form of communication because it’s convenient to communicate with people all over the world and country using this space, and at the same time keeping the formality of a business letter sent through mail is possible. With email we are able to replace the mail system—people can still write informal, personal letters, and businesses can still communicate professionally if needed; we even get junk mail or spam that we can have the pleasure of discarding without reading. Email is also allowing the world to become paperless; banking can be done completely online nowadays, and this saves people time from having to run to the bank or make a phone call only to be kept waiting for 10 minutes before speaking to a representative. Email is unique because it can be personalized to be kept as a formal email, or written to your best friend. It’s a convenient form of communication with everybody (you surely don’t want to give out your screen-name or personal cell phone number to businesses/interviewers/etc.). It allows for the best of both worlds—as long as one doesn’t become a depressed, compulsive email checker.