Slack, the popular desktop and mobile messaging service, promised to help us avoid endless work emails and make us all more productive. However, as Wired reported, it has brought with it its own productivity issues.

The app may have a loyal band of followers but neuroscientist and lecturer, Lucas Miller is certainly not among them. As a lecturer at Haas School of Business at Berkeley University and co-founder of productivity consultancy, Stoa Partners, Miller warns students and clients on the dangers of getting hooked on Slack. “Technology advances usually supplant what has come before but Slack hasn’t, it’s just doubled the pain,” he says. The problem, Miller explains, goes beyond the inconvenience of monitoring another inbox. He sees Slack as a particularly “scary offender” in stopping people getting their work done because it encourages them to be constantly distracted. It’s scary because messenger-based systems directly tap into how humans seek to reward themselves, and the long term result is unhealthy.