Via the Examiner, we learn that a new ranking put out by Dulles-based AOL places Washington, D.C. as the "most email addicted" city in the country, beating out the likes of Atlanta, New York, San Francisco and Houston, which all placed in the top five. The prevalence of mobile email devices such as Blackberries and Sidekicks in the city was attributed to the result, as well as the large number of government employees, most of whom are required to have more than one email address. Eighty-two percent of Washingtonians who responded to the survey reported they had more than one email address, which frankly seems low. Who are these 18 percent who only have one? Perhaps they're counting children under 12 and the elderly.

Switched has the full results, which show a number of other hilarious statistics, including that four in 10 D.C. residents say they keep a PDA by their pillow when sleeping to listen for late-night emails, and that 58 percent of us admitted to checking e-mail with a portable device while sitting on the toilet. If that's the case for you, consider this a blanket ban on describing that last activity in the comments.

The AOL/Time Warner newsroom has also published some tips on how to tackle "email addiction", such as organizing your email into folders, using your away message more often to take a break, and picking up the phone whenever your email correspondence with a person on the same topic goes back and forth more than three times. What's a phone, again?

Photo by Michael Starghill