Bill Myers

Dealing with email may hurt your IQ more than smoking pot.

According to a recent university study, "workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana."

I'm not sure how they conducted the study, but I do understand the results.

Dealing with a never ending stream of interruptions -- email, phone, and text messages -- definitely puts a crimp in productivity, and makes it all but impossible to get anything accomplished.

If we want to be more productive and creative, we have to figure out a way to limit our exposure to constant interruptions. (Maybe turn off the cell phone, throw away the text messenger, and disconnect our email accounts?)

I don't know the answer to the problem, but I can't afford to drop too many more IQ points. How about you?

Find the details of the study at http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/22/text.iq/