You've Got Mail

IDG News Service — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:43:03 -0800

By Peter Hind, IDG News Service

I question the usefulness of e-mail as a communication medium. However, I always feel like a bit of a lone wolf when I express this criticism. According to an IDC research, the amount of global business-related person-to-person e-mail is expected to rise from one trillion e-mails a year in 1999 to over six trillion by the end of this year. Clearly, a lot of people like using e-mail and its popularity is growing. Nevertheless, I wonder whether this is the best way for business people to communicate.

First, I think e-mail is a pretty poor way to introduce yourself: your e-mail has to circumnavigate the recipient's spam filter. As a first-time correspondent, the odds are strong that your e-mail will be parked among the junk mail needing the recipient's approval. Because of potential virus threats, one will be extremely cautious about opening correspondence from an unknown source. As such, the likelihood of your e-mail being accepted rests largely with the attractiveness of its title.

Then, I question the value of e-mail as a way of outlining anything complicated. Unless it is printed, e-mail is not tactile, so it tends to be sped-read on the screen. In my experience, this works against ease of comprehension, especially if the e-mail is lengthy. Moreover, the use of graphics is not as straight forward as in paper documents, so diagrams cannot be easily used to illustrate a complex point. Finally, the sheer volume of information people receive via e-mail means that unless they are ruthless in culling documents, they are going to drown in e-mail. Unfortunately, all these disadvantages increase the likelihood of important or useful documents being overlooked.

A Disruptive Influence

However, my main criticism of e-mail centers on what I perceive as its negative impact on work practices. All around me, I see people whose entire working day seems to consist of creating or responding to e-mails. They appear to be locked in to some form of electronic ping pong. It is almost as if responding to e-mail is the sole justification for their existence. Unlike other forms of correspondence, such as letters and phone calls, e-mail seems to have a much greater disruptive influence on its recipients. In fact, it was this very issue that researchers from two universities in Scotland set out to explore.

The researchers undertook a worldwide web-based survey of the ways in which individuals deal with their e-mail. The survey sample comprised individuals in academic and/or creative roles. This was done deliberately. The researchers recognized that e-mail can be disruptive and that this can be costly in an academic context, where the work requires lengthy periods of deliberation. The researchers believed that this was also true for other creative occupations like software developers, architects, designers and consultants. As a result, such people were also included in the study.

At the start, the survey asked respondents to rate their agreement on a five-point scale to 10 statements relating to e-mail usage. These statements explored how soon they and others expected a reply to an e-mail, what pressure they felt to deal with e-mail and whether e-mail made their lives easier or was a source of stress. From these responses, the Scottish researchers identified three personality types in their attitude to e-mail.

What's Your E-mail Personality?

The first group is described as being 'relaxed'. These people neither feel any pressure to respond to e-mails immediately, nor do they expect quick responses to their messages. The next group is termed 'driven'. E-mail generates a pressure but they thrive on this. The researchers found that these people respond quickly to e-mails, but expect similar response levels to messages they send. Finally, the researchers classified a group as 'stressed' by e-mail. These people respond quickly to e-mails but regard the demands to do so as a negative pressure on their work.

The researchers then tried to see if there were any differences between gender and age in relation to e-mail. Interestingly, while there was no difference between male and female e-mail users, there was an age variation. Intriguingly, those under 40 tended to score more highly on the relaxed factor, which surprised me given the importance Generation Y appears to attach to things like texting, e-mail and Facebook.

The study then asked those surveyed how frequently they checked their e-mail. The results were startling. Despite the nature of their work and the need to reflect on problems, 34 per cent of respondents checked their e-mail every 15 minutes, while 64 per cent checked it every hour. Moreover, the researchers identified previous studies which showed that this compulsion to check e-mail has nothing to do with the e-mail reminder facility. It has been identified as ‘an obsessive-compulsive need' to check e-mail morning, noon and night.

The researchers then sought to examine whether there was any link between e-mail behavior and personal self-esteem. It was assumed that a lack of self-esteem would be related to a perceived lack of control over the working environment, which would be further related to feelings of e-mail stress. However, these assumptions were only partially proven. Low self-esteem was found to be partly related to a lack of control and lack of control was found to be related to both the driven and stressed orientations. However, the evidence was that there are other factors, such as one's level of seniority in the organization, affecting perceptions of control over e-mail.

Finally, the report looked at the ability of respondents to deal with distractions. It examined whether there was a link between the ability to deal with distractions and e-mail stress. Here again, those stressed most by e-mail found it hardest to ignore external distractions and to resume work after attending to an e-mail. Nevertheless, the researchers found no significant relationship between the ability to deal with distractions and either of the other two e-mail user types.

The Verdict

As a result, the Scottish researchers contended that “there is evidence that e-mail, unlike more traditional communication media, can exert a powerful hold over its users, and many computer users experience stress as a direct result of e-mail-related pressure.”

I certainly feel that I fall into this category. I would like to have a relaxed attitude towards e-mail, but I find that difficult to achieve. It is all well and good aspiring to respond to an e-mail within the week, but I'm not sure that is possible. If I don't respond within the day, then the message gets buried by the arrival of newer e-mails. Furthermore, I sometimes feel that because I have received an e-mail, it takes precedence over other things on my agenda.

The evidence from this research indicates that I am not alone in feeling this way. As such, I wonder when more people are going to stop and say, “How should I transmit this message?” I believe that the ease of e-mail is also its biggest drawback. It has encouraged lazy and voluminous communication which is swamping people's inboxes. As such, it is much harder for a message to stand out from the crowd.

In fact, e-mail has usurped traditional mail to such an extent that, these days, a letter has almost a novelty value about it. However, this means that ordinary mail can be a pleasant surprise. Moreover, it has no viruses and is usually more colorful. Given these advantages and the stress that many feel dealing with e-mail, I wonder whether we might see a renaissance of good old snail mail in the coming years. I bet many would find it a lot less stressful.

Peter Hind is a freelance consultant and commentator with nearly 25 years of experience in the IT industry. He is co-author of The IT Manager's Survival Guide and has been running enterprise IT executive events for more than a decade across the Asia-Pacific

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