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Workers suffering from 'email stress'
Last updated at 00:07am on 13.08.07
Workers checked their email up to 40 times an hour
Targets, deadlines and getting to work on time have long been the main sources of pressure for most workers, but now it seems the office is being plagued by a new problem: e-mail stress.
According to new research increasing numbers of workers say they are swamped with a never-ending tide of messages.
Trying to keep up with a stream of incoming mail interrupts normal work and leaves staff tired, frustrated and unproductive, it concluded.
Employees also feel under pressure to check and respond quickly to emails, with some checking their inbox up to 40 times an hour.
The research, by a team of academics from Glasgow and Paisley universities, found that people check their emails more often than they admitted in a survey.
Half the study's 177 participants said they looked at their email more than once an hour, with 35 per cent claiming to check every 15 minutes, but monitoring equipment fitted to their computers showed it was more often.
Workers also said they felt pressured to switch applications to check whether emails were urgent, before switching back to their work.
Karen Renaud, of Glasgow University, who was involved in the research, said: 'Email is the thing that now causes us the most problems in our working lives.
"It's an amazing tool, but it's got out of hand. Email harries you. You want to know what's in there, especially if it's from a family member or friends, or your boss, so you break off what you are doing to read the email.
"The problem is that when you go back to what you were doing, you've lost your chain of thought and, of course, you are less productive.
"People's brains get tired from breaking off from something every few minutes to check emails. The more distracted you are by distractions, including email, then you are going to be more tired and less productive."
The computer scientist, along with psychologist Judith Ramsay and statistician Mario Hair, both of Paisley University, surveyed mainly academics and those in creative jobs to discover how they dealt with emails received at work.
They found more than a third - 34 per cent - felt 'stressed' by the sheer volume of emails they received and an obligation to respond quickly.
Another 28 per cent said the pressure of receiving emails made them feel 'driven'.The remaining 38 per cent were classed as 'relaxed' because they did not reply to an email until a day or even a week later.
They also discovered women felt under more pressure than men to respond quickly to emails.
"Females, in particular, tended to feel more pressure to respond than males," their report said. "Many individuals seem to feel pressured by email and feel this pressure negatively as stress.'
Employees in creative jobs or work that requires long periods of concentration to get an important project finished, such as academics, writers, architects and journalists, were likely to be worst affected, they said.
They said people sending emails should not put recipients under pressure to respond as quickly as they would to a phone call.
They also suggested recipients should avoid constantly monitoring their emails 'since this will negatively affect all other work activities' and should instead set aside dedicated email reading times to catch up on their messages.
Reader views (20)
I have a problem where I eat whole tubes of toothpaste for breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.
- Rebecca Zarb, Perth, Australia
i love to eat a lot of food but my friends bag me about it! help me!!!!
love kelly j
- Kelly Jackson, Perth Australia
I am managing 5 companies and after checking my sent folders of the last 4 year I discovered that I was indeed sending 10,000 messages per year on average. This is way too much considering that my job would be to lead the company in the future. How can I do that if I am pre-occupied with emails from morning till late? It was time to do something about this, so I implemented Unified Messaging Systems in all companies and started to use Collaboration tools wherever possible (e.g. Google Calendar or so). The best decision I made was to try email sharing for our generic mail addresses such as sales@ and info@ which resulted in enormous efficiency and cost reduction. We accomplished that by changing to IMAP instead of POP and by changing the email clients throughout the companies to Taroby and Thunderbird instead of others.
- Tony, Auckland, New Zealand
I have been a Senior VP as well as a COO and as I saw the connundrum of email overload begin to engulf me I devised a header return to all emails. The header on effect told the sender thank you for sending me the email however, I will not respond nor comment to any email message that is not directed wholly to me and requests my opinion or decision. My staff were well aware of their levels of authority and our very effective weekly staff meetings handled 99% of the issues effectively. People who are becoming swamped with email and the attendant stress are simply not managing down, side ways and up well enough. It does take internal, institutional change and training to do this however.
- Robert, Denver, USA
This article only touches upon work emails received during work hours and the stress described is indeed legitimate.
When the volume of incoming email per day exceeds 150-200 the sheer volume of these messages allows for only an appoximate 2 minutes to read, analyze, and form a response for each email. IF all you are doing all day is handling email. Forget about meetings, project plans, phone calls, administration and the host of other productive activities most should be engaging in.
Now if this isn't enough of a problem consider the individuals (not unlike myself) who are also required to carry a Blackberry so this process can continue no matter whether you are at the office or not.
There is nothing more rewarding than a buzzing Blackberry that happily presents me with an email from my boss at 3am on a Sunday morning (some of us sleep) asking for clarification on a project plan submitted for review about 4 weeks prior.
- Bill, Phila, PA
I wouldn't say that the "stream of incoming mail interrupts normal work" for me, as e-mail is "normal work" for many jobs. Reading and answering e-mail is just as much a part of my job as answering the phone or talking face-to-face with co-workers.
- John, Perry, Florida, U.S.
There are some people in this world who feel they've done their jobs just by forwarding emails to all and sundry. What I particularly loathe is having to read pages and pages of conversations back and forth only to discover that nothing is required of me. I'd quite like to torture those culprits, and rather slowly at that.
- Lmd, London
After my retirement 5 years ago I think the fact that I didn't have to deal with hundreds of emails per day was the most pleasant aspect of retirement. I know it's getting worse and people are being burned out faster and this is likely to continue as electronic devices become so entrenched in the lives of workers that they will never be able to leave their jobs. My sympathy goes to the youngsters now in the workforce and those entering.
- Ed, Palm Springs, California
Email has become a bigger pain than I ever could have imagined. I used to work at boring jobs where I welcomed email as a daily distraction. Now I work for myself and don't feel that way anymore.
I'll often go two weeks at a time without so much as looking at my inbox. On the one hand, this strategy stinks, because all it does is give me a HUGE number of unread emails, which I need to go back and review all at once. But on the other hand, the longer I stay away from it, the better the groove I get into when it comes to actually working. I've come to view email as only a step above walking in and out of your office to party during the workday.
- Jdm, Philadelphia, PA
We're doing personal email at work because our bosses insist that we check (and handle) work email from home! When I can't leave my job at work? I don't feel bad about taking a few minutes to do home stuff at my job.
- Ken, Middletown, CT
Working from home, e-mail and phone are my only connections to my colleagues. I get my assignments electronically, provide my deliverables electronically, and monitor/communicate status electronically. Email is a great tool for me and I have taken control of it using filters. As my inbox fills up, I use it as a to-do list and I'm forced to keep my inbox clean. When I read a message, I decide then and there whether to keep it in the inbox (to-do) or to file it away (dealt with).
Also, I do not receive personal e-mail at work. I have a separate account for personal communications, and I check that account as I need to. This way, personal messages are not cluttering my work inbox.
I think people who have creative jobs or other jobs requiring long spans of thought/concentration should use filters and make a commitment to check their email at certain times. AND, make it clear that if someone has an emergency or other immediate need, they should follow up their e-mail with a phone call. It's that simple. Take control.
- Angie Canon, Houston, USA
I just turn it off when I have to concentrate on something, especially when writing. It's amazing how well that works.
- Rebecca Farr, Huntsville AL USA
It's fairly easy to set Outlook preferences so emails are not sent and received every one minute. It can be every 10 minutes, or half hour I believe, which would give people concrete assurance that they will not be receiving a new batch of emails every one minute.
- Joel, Tacoma, USA
I work in a law office where we receive legitimate business email regarding litigation (not personal, spam, jokes etc). I receive about 200 or more emails in one work day. I have to stop and look at every email I receive because it is usually an update on a case. Everyone I work with agrees that it keeps your productivity level low and it can be very frustrating and annoying. But, on the positive side, it can make things easier too. No more stacks of snail mail to go through.
- S, USA
Pa Roddy - I wish reporting that I was overworked to my boss would make a difference. However, he is overworked too. No matter how well organized you are, if you get 200 work emails a day that you are expected to respond to, in addition to attending meetings and working on projects, it's tough not to be stressed sometimes. You obviously aren't overworked as many of us are, or you wouldn't say it is rubbish. I have noticed that while most people expect to have their emails answered promptly, it's become easier to postpone returning phone calls - if you need an answer immediately around my workplace, sending an email is the way to go.
- Kathy, Germantown, MD
Obviously some of us (Chris) don't work in the real work where work emails, personal emails, spam, and everything else comes flying at you full-force all day long.
The key to surviving the email onslaught is learning how to prioritise. Still, I've seen legitimate business emails in excess of 50 an hour. That's bound to stress ANYONE. Email has become a menace of sorts. It's replaced rampant internet surfing as the most abused form of 'progress' from our information society.
- Brian, Baltimore, MD
If you use filters and rule sets you can very efficiently organise email. Sounds like most of the problem is around how to effectively mange email.
- Jeff, Lusby, USA
Why are people receiving personal emails at work?
- Chris, Houston, USA
So much nonsense is mailed through cyber space every second of every day. During World War II people were asked "Is your journey necessary?" It's about time people today started asking themselves "Is my email necessary?"
- Trevor Roll, London
What an absolute load of rubbish, if you organised your time properly then you would be able to deal with all of these requests (or at the very least would be able to report being overworked to your boss) and wouldn't suffer from stress.
- Pa Roddy, London
