I've heard if you follow any links in the spam email it will record where the link was followed from and send you more spam b/c it knows that email address is active. Something like that.
If you get a ton of spam maybe it's time to start over with a new email address and just sign up for stuff under that spam email address. That's what I do. Though I get spam in my regular email anyway at least it never shows in my inbox, and I try to sign up for most things using the spam email address.