Mailbox Syndrome: Understanding Email Overload & How to Overcome It

"Mailbox syndrome" is an informal pop-culture reference that, in all uses, refers to a person's relationship with her mailbox. It can refer to a physical mailbox, but more typically refers to an Email inbox.

Mailbox Syndrome

• As blogger Amit Agarwal described it, "If you find yourself staring at your inbox wondering what it is you should be doing, you have probably got mailbox syndrome."

Empty and Full

• Several bloggers (including journalist Susan Poremba in her blog "I Breathe, Therefore I Write) describe "empty mailbox syndrome." The user rushes to the computer, or simply doesn't leave it, eager for an Email to arrive. "Full mailbox syndrome" refers to a compulsion to save every Email or to allow Emails to collect unopened until an Email inbox is full.

Urban Dictionary

• The "Urban Dictionary," an online dictionary of slang, does not list "mailbox syndrome."

Crackberry

• The Urban Dictionary does list "Crackberry," a derivative of "BlackBerry," the mobile phone/Email device. As Urban Dictionary defines, "Users/owners are typically addicted to checking Email and swapping short messages on the device," appearing as "addicted as a crackhead is to the pipe."

Clinical Diagnosis

• The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), published in 1994, does not recognize "mailbox syndrome" or any Internet-related pathologies. DSM-V, which is set for release in 2013, presumably will address Internet addiction.