Study Refutes E-Mail Myth

“In fact 60 percent of Americans who use e-mail at work receive 10 or fewer messages on an average day, the study released Sunday found. Only 6 percent receive more than 50. And among those power users, only 11 percent say they feel overwhelmed by all the e-mail.”

—Study Refutes E-Mail MythWired)

It makes sense… those few people who really are overwhelmed by e-mail are more likely to complain about it online, where such memes spread very quickly. Nevertheless, if you shut off your telephone and answering machine, there’s no record of the phone calls you ignore. If you don’t check your e-mail for a while, it piles up, and hits you all at once when you go back to it. You can’t even pick up all your e-mail and dump it in the trash can so that it makes a satisfying “whump”, though I guess you could record the “whump” noise and set up your computer so that the “whump” sound plays when you empty your recycling bin, but that wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying. Er… what was this post about again?