ATTENTION SPAM explained by Kevin Courtney.

Another distraction in your inbox?

It's not just in your inbox - it's in your mobile phone, Blackberry, television, iPod, and even in your head. Attention spam is what you get when your life is cluttered up with useless information. You can't think, you can't concentrate, you can't keep your mind on the important stuff, because your head is stuffed with the popular culture equivalent of cotton-candy.

Surely it can't be that bad - oh, hold on a minute, there's another ad for Viagra coming in.

It's worse than you could ever imagine. We are all suffering from attention spam in one form or another - but half of us don't realise it because our brains haven't stood still long enough to work out what's wrong. Like Neo in The Matrix, we're lost in a world of artificial stimuli, wired up to one great big grid of useless information.

So our lives have become like a big game of trivial pursuit, on the web?

Whoa, philosophical, dude! Attention spam is everywhere, and it's taking over. If you spend half your working day going through all the junk e-mail in your inbox, you're suffering from attention spam. If you spend more time texting people than actually talking to them face-to-face, you've got attention spam. If you spend the whole night watching Big Brother, then spend the whole of the next day talking about what you watched on Big Brother. . . well, obviously, you're beyond help.

So, how did things get so bad?

We could blame the spammers, we could blame technology, but really, we only have ourselves to blame. How many times have you used your mobile phone to tell your loved one you're on the train? How many times have you clicked on those e-mails telling you you've inherited a million from a long-lost granny you never knew existed? How many times have you stopped a friend in mid-conversation to read a text from someone you hardly know? How much time do you waste on Facebook, Bebo, and a million other social network sites, where no one actually says anything? If any of the above applies to you, then you've got a serious case of attention spam, my friend.

Omigod, how do I find a cure for this terrible ailment?

If you can't go cold turkey on the technology, then try limiting your time checking e-mails, texts and blogs. Switch off your phone and power off your computer now and again, just to clear the cyber-clutter.

You're asking a lot here.

That's the trouble with attention spam. We've become so used to these endless daily distractions that we've come to depend on them. If a few minutes go by without another junk e-mail coming in, we get jittery. We check our phones every few minutes to see if a text has come in, from somebody, anybody. Some people have it so bad, they start spamming other people, sending out trivial e-mails to everyone in their address book, sending text jokes to all and sundry, and putting their entire lives up on the web (known as "lifestreaming") - anything to avoid the scary prospect of dealing with the real world.

Try at home:Good news, darling! I got a university degree, a year's supply of Viagra and a million dollars from a deceased tycoon who happens to have my last name.

Try at work:Okay, who deleted the e-mail I sent out about dealing with attention spam?