I would apologise for returning to the subject of email if it weren't for the fact that we seem to be obsessed. You might have assumed (reasonably) that the entire population of the UK fully implements the advice discussed in this column each week, in which case everyone would have near-empty in-boxes and a warm glow. But apparentlythis isn't the case: according to a study at Glasgow and Paisley universities, more than a third of office workers suffer from "email stress", with 34% saying they checked their email every 15 minutes. Monitoring software showed they were seriously underestimating. Maybe you, too, feel you're drowning in email, in which case let me irritate you by saying this: I don't believe it.

We're accustomed to hearing that we're overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming data. But like most such research, this latest study doesn't really show that we get too many emails. What it shows is that we're addicted to checking. And, as any Skinnerian psychologist will tell you, we're like rats in a box pushing levers for food: we find it addictive precisely because we sometimes, even usually, don't find any new messages. If you really received multiple emails every minute, checking would hold no promise of a surge of excitement. Instead of clicking compulsively, you'd be forced to make sober plans for dealing with the onslaught.

This explains why the researchers' suggested remedy - setting specific times for checking email - probably won't work. For the truly overloaded, it might. But since the rest of us are addicts, the idea of just checking less frequently is exposed for what it is: an appeal to nothing but willpower, like telling an overeater to eat less, or a smoker to stop.

Self-help gurus will claim they can boost your willpower. But the evidence suggests it's instilled in us early, or not. In Walter Mischel's famous Marshmallow Experiments, four-year-olds were left alone in a room with a marshmallow and told they could eat it now, or wait until the experimenter returned and get two. Some cracked. Others managed to distract themselves by singing, walking or hiding their faces. Mischel tracked them for years afterwards. Those who could defer gratification at four did far better, academically and financially. Genetics or parenting style seem to influence levels of self-control for life.

So perhaps we addicts should go easier on ourselves. If you can't stop checking, don't try to wage war on your impulses: just have a simple system to deal with the interruption swiftly. Here I'll invoke (not for the first time) the productivity expert David Allen: if an email can be dealt with in under two minutes, deal with it. If not, have a single list where you keep a record of undone tasks. The point isn't to get a million things done - it's to know exactly what you're not doing. Half the time, Allen says, our stress is due to the nagging worry that we ought to be somewhere else, doing something else. When you know that's not true, you can get on with living life instead.

oliver.burkeman@ theguardian.com