I left my hotmail account because I could not stand to see the trillions of "enlargement" titled emails. I got a coveted invitation to gmail and I never looked back. SPAM gets on people's nerves and sometimes in your wallet and your private life.
Here is a quick list of things you can do to diminish or avoid it all together.

1. Have at least two email accounts.
One for subscribing to all the useless internet sites we like so much, and one for real correspondence. This is absolutely a must. It's absurd to subscribe to all the newsletter, new services, beta testing with one email.

2. For your personal email use your full name. Don't use quirky pseudonyms these are too easy to catch.

3. DO NOT forward email chains. This is the method of choice for spammers to collect emails.

4. Facebook, Myspace and the rest do not honor their privacy policies. I signed up for facebook, not listening to my own advice, with my personal email account and within two days I started getting "you received a postcard from your classmate", emails. This had never happened before I signed up for facebook.

5. Use your email's filter. You know how it is, you can ban a word from ever entering your inbox!

These are the main actions that internet users can take to avoid being burried in SPAM without being too IT saavy!