"You've Got E-Mail!" ... Shall I Deal With It Now? Electronic Mail From the Recipient's Perspective

This article considers the nature of e-mail from the recipient's perspective-what the seemingly free and easy communication really costs the recipient. Information gathered by electronic monitoring software is shown to be at odds with the results of an online survey of e-mail users' perceptions of their e-mail experience-users drastically underestimate the disruptive effects of e-mail. The conclusion is that the constant monitoring of e-mail actually reduces productivity and that there is a need for increased power, control, and awareness on the part of the e-mail recipient to ensure that e-mail remains a tool rather than a tyrant. It is necesssary to alert the user of the true cost of e-mail alerts.

[1]  Joseph S. Valacich,et al.  The Influence of Task Interruption on Individual Decision Making: An Information Overload Perspective , 1999 .

[2]  Jacek Gwizdka,et al.  Email task management styles: the cleaners and the keepers , 2004, CHI EA '04.

[3]  R. H. Franke,et al.  The Hawthorne experiments: First statistical interpretation. , 1978 .

[4]  M D'Esposito,et al.  The roles of prefrontal brain regions in components of working memory: effects of memory load and individual differences. , 1999, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[5]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  Understanding sequence and reply relationships within email conversations: a mixed-model visualization , 2003, CHI '03.

[6]  Karen Renaud,et al.  Making sense of low-level usage data to understand user activities , 2004 .

[7]  Allen S. Lee.  Electronic Mail as a Medium for Rich Communication: An Empirical Investigation Using Hermeneutic Interpretation , 1994, MIS Q..

[8]  S. Freud.  The Psychopathology of Everyday Life , 1915 .

[9]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention , 1996 .

[10]  Anoop Gupta,et al.  Supporting Email Workflow , 2001 .

[11]  Ray Dawson,et al.  Reducing the effect of email interruptions on employees , 2003, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[12]  Olle Bälter,et al.  Electronic mail in a working context , 1998 .

[13]  E. P. Lewis.  Information overload. , 1976, Nursing outlook.

[14]  Thomas Jackson,et al.  The cost of email interruption , 2001, Journal of Systems and Information Technology.

[15]  Ian Smith,et al.  Taking email to task: the design and evaluation of a task management centered email tool , 2003, CHI '03.

[16]  E. Langer,et al.  Heads I win, tails it's chance: The illusion of control as a function of the sequence of outcomes in a purely chance task. , 1975 .

[17]  E. Langer,et al.  The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: a field experiment in an institutional setting. , 1976, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[18]  Maha El-Shinnawy,et al.  Acceptance of communication media in organizations: richness or features? , 1998 .

[19]  Hal Berghel,et al.  Email—the good, the bad, and the ugly , 1997, CACM.

[20]  Massimo Bertacco,et al.  Email as a Speed-Facilitating Device: A Contribution to the Reduced-Cues Perspective on Communication , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[21]  Ellen J. Langer.  Judgment under uncertainty: The illusion of control , 1982 .

[22]  Wendy E. Mackay,et al.  More than just a communication system: diversity in the use of electronic mail , 1988, CSCW '88.

[23]  M. Lynne Markus,et al.  Finding a happy medium: explaining the negative effects of electronic communication on social life at work , 1994, TOIS.

[24]  D. Meyer,et al.  Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[25]  Maureen S. Battistella,et al.  Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization , 1991 .

[26]  Ralph Adam,et al.  Is e-mail addictive? , 2002, Aslib Proc..

[27]  D. Lykken,et al.  The Genetics of Genius , 1998 .

[28]  William Rowan,et al.  The Study of Instinct , 1953 .

[29]  Karen Renaud,et al.  The influence of self-esteem and locus of control on perceived email-related stress , 2007, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[30]  R. W. Schulz.  Conducting educational research. 2nd ed. , 1978 .

[31]  Con Stough,et al.  Occupational stress in universities: Staff perceptions of the causes, consequences and moderators of stress , 2001 .

[32]  Nicolas Ducheneaut,et al.  In Search of Coherence: A Review of E-Mail Research , 2005, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[33]  Robert E. Kraut,et al.  Understanding email use: predicting action on a message , 2005, CHI.

[34]  F. J. Roethlisberger,et al.  Management and the Worker , 2003 .

[35]  Rebecca E. Grinter,et al.  Quality versus quantity: e-mail-centric task management and its relation with overload , 2005 .

[36]  B. Tuckman.  Conducting Educational Research , 1972 .

[37]  Nicolas Guéguen,et al.  Solicitation by E-Mail and Solicitor's Status: A Field Study of Social Influence on the Web , 2002, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[38]  Andrew Steptoe,et al.  Genius and the mind : studies of creativity and temperament , 1998 .

[39]  Leon Adam Watts,et al.  In Search of Coherence: A Review of E-Mail Research , 2005, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[40]  R. A. Wicklund,et al.  Speed communication and solving social problems , 2003 .

[41]  E. J. Anderson,et al.  Working memory in chess , 1996, Memory & cognition.

[42]  Wye Keen Khong.  Spam Law for the Internet , 2001, Journal of Information, Law and Technology.

[43]  F. J. Roethlisberger,et al.  Management and the Worker , 1941 .

[44]  I. A. Rudy,et al.  A critical review of research on electronic mail , 1996 .

[45]  M. Zanna,et al.  Persuasion as a function of self-awareness in computer-mediated communication , 1989 .