Researchers at Glasgow University and Paisley University found
that the pressure to respond immediately to emails was a cause of
stress for 34% of employees. Women are worse hit than men and a
further 28% of workers were 'driven' by the need to answer mails
promptly.
Computer scientist Karen Renaud, psychologist Judith Ramsay and
statistician Mario Hair have produced the study, looking at the
impact of email on workers' lives. They found that email
interruptions were disrupting work and causing anxiety.
The research showed that employees significantly underestimated
the number of times that they checked their email. Half of the
participants said they checked email more than once an hour and 35%
said it was once every 15 minutes.
The researchers' use of computer monitoring software, though,
found that the typical worker checked email 30 to 40 times an
hour.
"Many individuals seem to feel pressured by email and feel this
pressure negatively as stress," said the research. "Females, in
particular, tended to feel more pressure to respond than
males."
"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,"
said Renaud of Glasgow University.
"The practice of checking email is not only likely to induce
stress, but is also counter-productive," said Renaud. "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 study, which looked at the working habits of 177 people,
concluded that employers should relieve email-induced stress on
employees by not putting pressure on them to respond to emails
immediately. It said that employees should set aside dedicated
email time in order to avoid negatively impacting other work.
