A new report out today from the Pew Internet and American Life Project points out the shocking (shocking! I tell you!) fact that spam is a problem with e-mail!!!

A survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project conducted between January 13 and February 9, 2005, shows the following:

• 28% of users with a personal email account say they are getting more spam than a year ago, while 22% say they are getting less.
• 21% of users with a work email account say they are getting more spam than a year ago, while 16% say they are getting less.
• 53% of email users say spam has made them less trusting of email, compared to 62% a year ago.
• 22% of email users say that spam has reduced their overall use of email, compared to 29% a year ago.
• 67% of email users say spam has made being online unpleasant or annoying, compared to 77% a year ago.

Overall, more than half of all internet users (52%) complain that spam is a big problem.

(Emphasis mine)

Now, several of these bullets may look like progress because they show lower figures for 2005 than for 2004. But (and I want to dig into the actual study itself, rather than just the executive summary, to see if there’s anything to this) I suspect that this is a false impression.

Take, for instance, the finding “53% of email users say spam has made them less trusting of email, compared to 62% a year ago”. My suspicion is that this has less to do with any progress being made against spam, and more to do with the slowing of the growth of new users in the U.S. — in other words, that most people have already been disillusioned about e-mail, and there aren’t as many new people coming in with fresh illusions to be shattered. So what you might call the “cynicism index” goes up.

In the meantime… cough RSS cough