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Would You Give Up Deodorant Or A Spouse For E-Mail?

How addicted to e-mail are you?

If you're like the majority of people in a new survey, e-mail is "essential" to your life. So essential, actually, that many people say they would give up deodorant, coffee, or their significant other for a day rather than go without sending and receiving messages.

"This survey yielded many surprising and compelling results about how important e-mail is to our users," said Jeff Holzmann, executive VP of IncrediMail, in an interview. The software company surveyed 10,000 of its users about the role of e-mail in their daily lives.

The survey showed that 73.8% of those polled say e-mail is essential to their life. When asked what they would rather give up for a day instead of losing e-mail, 54.4% said they would rather forgo chocolate, while 50.2% said they would give up coffee, and 41.4% would pass on television. Another 38.4% would skip using their cell phone for a day.

These might be small things to give up, but the survey also showed that 14.9% of those polled would rather live without their spouse or significant other than go without e-mail, and 6% said they would rather lose their home.

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