Posted by Virus Bulletin on Nov 3, 2006
Survey finds emails more irritating than unwanted paper.
A study carried out by researchers from the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the School of Communication at the University of Miami has found that unsolicited email is perceived as both more annoying and more intrusive than junk mail received through the post.
Mariko Morimoto of the University of Georgia and Susan Chang of the University of Miami conducted a series of surveys and focus groups, mostly of undergraduate students, and analysed attitudes to direct marketing, comparing the effects of unsolicited email with more traditional paper-based junk mail. They found that spam caused considerably greater irritation to recipients, as well as a higher sense of intrusiveness and loss of privacy.
Possible reasons for this included the sheer size of the spam problem, the filling up of finite inboxes and the time required to clear them, which was found to be considered greater than the time taken filtering out unwanted post; the potential of spam-filtering software to false positive and filter out useful or even urgent messages; the far greater likelihood of offensive content in spam emails; and the sense that an email address should be a more private and sensitive personal detail than a residential one, associated with the loss of control felt due to limited understanding of how email addresses are gathered for spamming.
Neither form of junk mail was found to improve recipients' opinions of the advertising industry.
The full details of the study have appeared in the Journal of Interactive Advertising, here.
Posted on 03 November 2006 by Virus Bulletin
