You receive junk e-mail in your inbox. Not just one or two pieces, but a multitude of spam; which, effectively makes up the better percentage of your total e-mails. Sure, your spam filter may catch the most of them, but there are always a few that seem to slip through the cracks. “Hello, old friend,” they say, as you’re opening the e-mail to find out just ‘who’ from your past may be trying to contact you.

And we’ve all been there. It may have upset you in the past, but how do you feel about it now? Sure, given the question, one would naturally express a great degree of disapproval towards spam. But honestly, does it really bother anyone that much anymore?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project began tracking users’ behavior and attitudes toward spam in June 2003, and today, have released a follow-up report which reveals some gloomy details. E-mail users are starting to become accustomed to their spam.

Fewer users reported that spam has made using e-mail unpleasant or annoying; however, it’s not a sign that spam is fading. 37% of e-mail users said that spam has increased, while 51% said they had not noticed a change within the last 2 years.

Among some of the reasons why spam bothers e-mail users less: The volume of the most offensive kind of spam (porn spam) has decreased, and people are becoming good at playing the spam game; they’re learning how to better identify it and deal with it.

Those who are more likely to be annoyed by spam include college graduates and users who have both a home and work e-mail account. Ironically, users over the age of 50 are less likely to get annoyed by spam, while over half of the people surveyed said they actually check their spam folder from time to time.

Pew’s survey was conducted between February 15 and March 7, 2007, among a sample of 2,200 U.S. adults with a margin of error of +/- 3%.

Related:

Entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 3:55 pm under Spam.

Read more entries by George Gardner.
Stumble It!