Electron Affinity

[Eli Esagoff_1I]

I am having trouble understanding how energy is released or spent when you add an electron to an element. Can someone please explain this to me? I understand the trend of electron affinity and how it increases towards the right (where the elements want to become stable).

[MariahClark 2F]

An easy way to think about electron affinity is the amount of energy required to [censored] an electron from a specific atom. This can also be thought of as how strong an atom's pull on its electrons are. If an atom has a high electron affinity, it would not be easy to pull off one of its electrons.

[Vienna Cimetta 1L]

So if an element has a high electron affinity, would the energy released when an electron is added also be high? The higher the electron affinity, the larger amount of energy released when an electron is added?

[Toru Fiberesima 1L]

electron affinity is the energy released when an atom acquires an electron (ie these would be negative values). So yes, a high electron affinity would mean the energy released when an electron is added would technically be very low.