Today, people no longer have to run back and forth between departments to report, exchange information, and handle paperwork. The explosion of email is creating a generation of office workers who are “overweight” and lacking in dynamism.
Sport England, an organization in the UK, is calling on everyone to refrain from sending unnecessary messages on Email Free Friday. The simple reason for this campaign is that “email makes you fat,” and it encourages employees to leave their seats and walk around the workplace to burn off excess calories.
“Instead of getting up and walking to a colleague’s desk to retrieve documents, people can connect with each other with just a few clicks, and they are gradually neglecting this small but beneficial exercise. Dorian Dugmore, a health advisor at Sport England, stated: “We are losing precious hours of movement simply because of email. The average energy expenditure index of desk employees has significantly decreased. People have formed a habit of eating fruits and vegetables daily, and now it’s time to establish a similar principle in office life.”
According to Dr. Dugmore, the state of being a “slave to the screen” has become a “common culture” in many workplaces. Employees send emails to colleagues sitting right next to them, unaware of those working in other areas, opting for escalators in train stations, catching buses near their homes, getting off at the closest stop to the office, taking elevators up to their working floors, and spending all eight hours sitting in front of a screen. “Increasing activity levels by just 10% could save 6,000 lives, save $875 million annually, reduce 1 million obese individuals in the UK, which would prevent 15,000 cases of heart disease, 34,000 diabetes cases, and 99,000 cases of high blood pressure,” Dugmore estimates.
UK company Phones 4U is also “banning 2,500 employees from using email in the office as it paralyzes people and makes them more susceptible to cancer.”
Meanwhile, an unnamed young man in Scotland is undergoing treatment for a messaging addiction after spending $7,880 on SMS in just 12 months.
He was also disciplined for sending up to 8,000 emails in just one month at work. Regarded as the first “SMS and email addict” in the country, he is currently being monitored to “quit” and reduce his messaging costs to under $17.50 per week.
“The feeling you get when you receive an SMS is delightful. Texting is like playing ping pong. You send a message and get a response immediately,” the 19-year-old shared.
P.T. (according to BBC, The Register)
