Vocal minority creating false impression that e-mail is burdening workers, majority receive less than 10 messages per day
Feeling swamped at work by e-mail? You just might be alone.
New research suggests the common notion that workers are burdened by overflowing inboxes at work is a myth. In fact, the majority of American workers who have access to e-mail at work receive just 10 or fewer e-mails per day according to E-mail at Work, a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. And 65 per cent described their e-mail load as “not a problem whatsoever.”
The findings came as a surprise even to the author of the study. Deborah Fallows, a senior research fellow at Pew, said the perception that workers are swamped in a quagmire of e-mail comes from a very vocal minority.
“A small number of the truly inundated work e-mailers have created most of the buzz about e-mail overload,” said Fallows.
She said the snapshot of a typical worker is of someone who spends roughly 30 minutes per day processing e-mail, including up to about 10 incoming messages and five outgoing ones. And the volume of e-mail isn’t increasing much either — Fallows findings show the typical worker is as likely to have seen no change in e-mail volume over they last year as to have seen it rise.
According to her research, only six per cent of workers with e-mail reported receiving more than 50 messages per day.
Dispelling the myth of time
Fallows research suggests that not only are staff not being inundated with e-mail, they’re also not spending very much time dealing with it in their day-to-day activities.
Three-quarters spend an hour or less on their daily e-mail. That includes almost 25 per cent who log fewer than 15 minutes a day on their work e-mail. Once again, a very small minority spend a very large amount of time on e-mail — just four per cent spend more than four hours per day doing e-mail.
About half of all workers who do work-related e-mail said their volume has remained steady over the last year and about half said it has increased. Twenty per cent said it had increased “a great deal.”
Timely responses
Fallows said logging onto e-mail is as easy, or easier, than checking voice-mail. Nearly 90 per cent of workers check their inboxes everyday, and most (70 per cent) check at least several times per day. E-mail software that is always on has enabled about 25 per cent of workers to “constantly” check their e-mail.
So how long is it taking staff to respond to an e-mail once it comes in? Nearly half (44 per cent) respond to most of the e-mail they should respond to as soon as it comes in. Another 38 per cent answer it by the end of the day and 10 per cent answer within a few days. Interestingly, three per cent never answer e-mail they know they “should” respond to. One heavily-burdened executive told Fallows, “Eventually, if it’s important enough, they’ll send it again or telephone.”
What is e-mail used for?
Fallows said most work e-mailers are very serious about the content of their e-mail. More than half say almost all of their incoming and outgoing messages are work related.
Workers also put a high value on e-mail. More than half rate their e-mail from eight to 10 on a 10-point scale, where the highest rating describes e-mail as being “essential” to their work. By comparison, nine per cent rate it one to three, or a “waste of time.”
The majority also found e-mail to be the best communication tool for a number of tasks.
“When comparing telephoning, in-person conversation and e-mail exchanges, e-mail proves best at processing both some of the most simple and most demanding work tasks,” said Fallows.
For example, 63 per cent found e-mail to be the most effective means for making arrangements and appointments in their work lives. More than three-quarters (77 per cent) agree that e-mail has made it easier for them to keep up with events at work.
But it does have its limitations.
“When more complex communications are required — resolving issues, having a dialogue, even asking questions — work e-mailers concede that e-mail is less effective,” said Fallows. “For example, work e-mailers think personal conversations work better than e-mail for raising questions about work.”
When issues get even more complicated, e-mail falls out of favour completely. A scant six per cent consider it to be effective for bringing up problems with supervisors and four per cent consider it effective for dealing with sensitive issues.
“E-mail lacks the non-verbal information that is conveyed in face-to-face conversations,” she said. “The rich body language, visual cues, subtle strokes of timing or feedback. E-mail’s counterpart vocabulary of emoticons — the happy faces, punctuation peppering, stage whispers — can be poor and often annoying substitutes. E-mail just sits out there, often abbreviated, often hastily written, impulsively sent and an easy target for misinterpretation.”
Where’s the spam?
Spam, those unwanted, unsolicited e-mails covering everything from the newest gadget to pornography, is a big problem for personal e-mail accounts but not such a big deal at the workplace, suggests Fallows.
“Two largely underreported facts about spam suggest the situation looks different and less gloomy for those with e-mail accounts at work,” she said. “First, the disbursement of spam is very uneven and second, most spam doesn’t reach e-mail accounts at people’s work places.”
More than half (52 per cent) of workers reported no spam in their e-mail accounts. Another 19 per cent reported less than 10 per cent of incoming mail at work as spam while 11 per cent said about two-thirds or more of their inbox was spam.
Fallows suggests this is because most “spammers” go after rich targets like AOL, MSN, Yahoo or Hotmail because of the vast number of users instead of corporations which have relatively few users with each domain address.
“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel instead of a lake,” one information technologist told Fallows.
Many corporations also use junk-mail filters, further lessening their allure as a target for spam, and educate employees about how to prevent being snared by spam traps.
This isn’t to suggest spam isn’t a serious problem. One company estimates the cost of spam at one dollar per piece of spam in lost productivity, said Fallows. A technology company has constructed a cost-of-spam calculator that predicts a company with 500 employees who receive five spams per day and take 10 seconds to delete each one will lose $40,000 in salaries and a total of 105 days of productivity.
“Such costs are probably not paid in the few seconds it takes for an employee to hit the delete key,” said Fallows. “But the salaries of IT workers, the purchase of anti-spam applications or services, the cost of extra servers or bandwith required to deal with incoming spam and the expense of educating employees in anti-spam behaviours all take an economic toll.”
There’s also an emotional toll from spam that’s a bit tougher to measure. One IT administrator explained the firm’s employees don’t complain about the minimal time lost in deleting their fairly small amount of junk mail. What really bothers employees is the kind of sickening feeling they get from the daily assault of barnyard subject lines.
The lighter side of e-mail
•43 per cent said e-mail has offered them some relief at times during their workday.
•39 per cent said they have sent jokes or chain e-mails at some point.
•26 per cent have used e-mail to discuss personal life.
•15 per cent admit to gossiping about work on e-mail.
The darker side
•22 per cent said e-mail has caused misunderstandings.
•28 per cent find e-mail distracting at times.
•23 per cent said e-mail adds a new source of stress to their work lives.
•16 per cent said e-mail encourages gossip.
Keeps people talking and juices flowing
•72 per cent said e-mail helps them communicate with more people.
•62 per cent said e-mail makes them more available to co-workers, but about one-third said it has made them too accessible to others.
•59 per cent said e-mail improves teamwork.
Fallows’ report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans’ use of the Internet and e-mail. The results are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between April 9 and May 17, 2002 among a sample of 2,442 Internet users 18 and older. The sample for this survey is a random digit sample of telephone numbers selected from telephone exchanges in the continental United States. It is accurate to within two percentage points 19 times out of 20.
New research suggests the common notion that workers are burdened by overflowing inboxes at work is a myth. In fact, the majority of American workers who have access to e-mail at work receive just 10 or fewer e-mails per day according to E-mail at Work, a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. And 65 per cent described their e-mail load as “not a problem whatsoever.”
The findings came as a surprise even to the author of the study. Deborah Fallows, a senior research fellow at Pew, said the perception that workers are swamped in a quagmire of e-mail comes from a very vocal minority.
“A small number of the truly inundated work e-mailers have created most of the buzz about e-mail overload,” said Fallows.
She said the snapshot of a typical worker is of someone who spends roughly 30 minutes per day processing e-mail, including up to about 10 incoming messages and five outgoing ones. And the volume of e-mail isn’t increasing much either — Fallows findings show the typical worker is as likely to have seen no change in e-mail volume over they last year as to have seen it rise.
According to her research, only six per cent of workers with e-mail reported receiving more than 50 messages per day.
Dispelling the myth of time
Fallows research suggests that not only are staff not being inundated with e-mail, they’re also not spending very much time dealing with it in their day-to-day activities.
Three-quarters spend an hour or less on their daily e-mail. That includes almost 25 per cent who log fewer than 15 minutes a day on their work e-mail. Once again, a very small minority spend a very large amount of time on e-mail — just four per cent spend more than four hours per day doing e-mail.
About half of all workers who do work-related e-mail said their volume has remained steady over the last year and about half said it has increased. Twenty per cent said it had increased “a great deal.”
Timely responses
Fallows said logging onto e-mail is as easy, or easier, than checking voice-mail. Nearly 90 per cent of workers check their inboxes everyday, and most (70 per cent) check at least several times per day. E-mail software that is always on has enabled about 25 per cent of workers to “constantly” check their e-mail.
So how long is it taking staff to respond to an e-mail once it comes in? Nearly half (44 per cent) respond to most of the e-mail they should respond to as soon as it comes in. Another 38 per cent answer it by the end of the day and 10 per cent answer within a few days. Interestingly, three per cent never answer e-mail they know they “should” respond to. One heavily-burdened executive told Fallows, “Eventually, if it’s important enough, they’ll send it again or telephone.”
What is e-mail used for?
Fallows said most work e-mailers are very serious about the content of their e-mail. More than half say almost all of their incoming and outgoing messages are work related.
Workers also put a high value on e-mail. More than half rate their e-mail from eight to 10 on a 10-point scale, where the highest rating describes e-mail as being “essential” to their work. By comparison, nine per cent rate it one to three, or a “waste of time.”
The majority also found e-mail to be the best communication tool for a number of tasks.
“When comparing telephoning, in-person conversation and e-mail exchanges, e-mail proves best at processing both some of the most simple and most demanding work tasks,” said Fallows.
For example, 63 per cent found e-mail to be the most effective means for making arrangements and appointments in their work lives. More than three-quarters (77 per cent) agree that e-mail has made it easier for them to keep up with events at work.
But it does have its limitations.
“When more complex communications are required — resolving issues, having a dialogue, even asking questions — work e-mailers concede that e-mail is less effective,” said Fallows. “For example, work e-mailers think personal conversations work better than e-mail for raising questions about work.”
When issues get even more complicated, e-mail falls out of favour completely. A scant six per cent consider it to be effective for bringing up problems with supervisors and four per cent consider it effective for dealing with sensitive issues.
“E-mail lacks the non-verbal information that is conveyed in face-to-face conversations,” she said. “The rich body language, visual cues, subtle strokes of timing or feedback. E-mail’s counterpart vocabulary of emoticons — the happy faces, punctuation peppering, stage whispers — can be poor and often annoying substitutes. E-mail just sits out there, often abbreviated, often hastily written, impulsively sent and an easy target for misinterpretation.”
Where’s the spam?
Spam, those unwanted, unsolicited e-mails covering everything from the newest gadget to pornography, is a big problem for personal e-mail accounts but not such a big deal at the workplace, suggests Fallows.
“Two largely underreported facts about spam suggest the situation looks different and less gloomy for those with e-mail accounts at work,” she said. “First, the disbursement of spam is very uneven and second, most spam doesn’t reach e-mail accounts at people’s work places.”
More than half (52 per cent) of workers reported no spam in their e-mail accounts. Another 19 per cent reported less than 10 per cent of incoming mail at work as spam while 11 per cent said about two-thirds or more of their inbox was spam.
Fallows suggests this is because most “spammers” go after rich targets like AOL, MSN, Yahoo or Hotmail because of the vast number of users instead of corporations which have relatively few users with each domain address.
“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel instead of a lake,” one information technologist told Fallows.
Many corporations also use junk-mail filters, further lessening their allure as a target for spam, and educate employees about how to prevent being snared by spam traps.
This isn’t to suggest spam isn’t a serious problem. One company estimates the cost of spam at one dollar per piece of spam in lost productivity, said Fallows. A technology company has constructed a cost-of-spam calculator that predicts a company with 500 employees who receive five spams per day and take 10 seconds to delete each one will lose $40,000 in salaries and a total of 105 days of productivity.
“Such costs are probably not paid in the few seconds it takes for an employee to hit the delete key,” said Fallows. “But the salaries of IT workers, the purchase of anti-spam applications or services, the cost of extra servers or bandwith required to deal with incoming spam and the expense of educating employees in anti-spam behaviours all take an economic toll.”
There’s also an emotional toll from spam that’s a bit tougher to measure. One IT administrator explained the firm’s employees don’t complain about the minimal time lost in deleting their fairly small amount of junk mail. What really bothers employees is the kind of sickening feeling they get from the daily assault of barnyard subject lines.
The lighter side of e-mail
•43 per cent said e-mail has offered them some relief at times during their workday.
•39 per cent said they have sent jokes or chain e-mails at some point.
•26 per cent have used e-mail to discuss personal life.
•15 per cent admit to gossiping about work on e-mail.
The darker side
•22 per cent said e-mail has caused misunderstandings.
•28 per cent find e-mail distracting at times.
•23 per cent said e-mail adds a new source of stress to their work lives.
•16 per cent said e-mail encourages gossip.
Keeps people talking and juices flowing
•72 per cent said e-mail helps them communicate with more people.
•62 per cent said e-mail makes them more available to co-workers, but about one-third said it has made them too accessible to others.
•59 per cent said e-mail improves teamwork.
Fallows’ report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans’ use of the Internet and e-mail. The results are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between April 9 and May 17, 2002 among a sample of 2,442 Internet users 18 and older. The sample for this survey is a random digit sample of telephone numbers selected from telephone exchanges in the continental United States. It is accurate to within two percentage points 19 times out of 20.
