Monday, May 11, 2009

Obsession with Advice Columnists

Dear advice columnist,

I have a problem. I'm hooked on reading advice columnists, as I never fail to read the daily and weekly newspaper, lifestyle features from Dear Abby, Carolyn Hax, and others. Half the letters I can hardly stand to read, particularly when you publish public service announcements telling people how to prevent diabetes or asking people to donate to the Irritable Bowel Syndrome Research Foundation, or some other inane matter that's only important to your market segment.

Yet I can't keep from spending inordinate amounts of time reading the advice you dish out to clueless, thickheaded dolts writing you for help with their all too often obvious problems. I love the way most of you throw the problems right back at the writer, yet I wonder if these people even ever recognize the problem in themselves?

It wouldn't be such a problem except that it saps my productivity when I should be doing other things, like filing my tax return form, studying a second language, working out, or writing in my blog. What should I do about this?

-Advice Column Addict in South Korea

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