10 articles delivered to my inbox a day? Really?

As we all know, one of the best parts of college is all of the free things you can get out of it. For the amount of money we are paying each semester, it seems only fair that we be compensated in some way. Thus, I was excited to learn that enrollment at Columbia University came along with a free New York Times account. 

However, since opening this account, my email has been bombarded with countless emails from The New York Times. Granted, some are very helpful! I appreciate the breaking news notifications (even if I’ve gotten 20 emails about tariffs in the past two weeks). But besides those emails, I get countless ones that are much less useful or important to me. 

Exhibit A from yesterday: “How to manage dust”

Last Sunday: “How to organize your sheets and towels”

Last Friday “10 small things neurologists wish you’d do for your brain”

I don’t have anything against these articles in particular. But when so many of these random articles end up in my inbox day after day, I just end up archiving them all so I don’t have to look at them anymore. I wish there was an option for me to categorize these things in order of necessity. Do I need to know about breaking executive orders? Yes, probably. Do I need to know how to reorganize my linen closet? Not really. Basically, I want New York Times to connect with my brain and know exactly what I want to see.

Out of curiosity, I looked on the New York Times website at my account settings and found out that I am signed up for multiple newsletters (which I honestly have no memory of ever opting in to, but it’s plausible that it happened.) Another weird thing is that these newsletters have no descriptions. How am I supposed to know if I want to receive In Short newsletters if I have no idea what it is or how often it will plague my inbox? I ended up removing all of the newsletters except for breaking news because I honestly don’t think I’ll miss them. Sure, there’s an occasional interesting article somewhere in there, but it’s not worth the dozens that I have to archive to find something else in my inbox. 

Only time will tell if unsubscribing from these mysterious newsletters will actually stop the bombardment of my email inbox. I’m watching you, New York Times.

Image via Bwarchives