Mark Dolliver's Takes: Less Worked Up About Spam

Some nuisances feel worse as our experience of them accumulates. Others, we mind less as time passes. Spam is in the latter category for many people, apparently. A survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found 37 percent of wired adults getting an increased amount of spam in their personal e-mail accounts (vs. 10 percent getting less) and 29 percent getting more at work (vs. 8 percent getting less). Still, fewer than one in five say spam is a “big problem” for them (see chart above), down from 25 percent in a 2003 Pew poll.