From the Times Online UK:

British workers are suffering “e-mail stress” because they are swamped with messages and constantly monitoring their inbox. Staff are left tired, frustrated and unproductive as they struggle to cope with a constant deluge of e-mails, researchers from Glasgow and Paisley universities have found.

More than a third said they thought they checked their inbox every 15 minutes and 64 per cent said they looked more than once an hour. When researchers fitted monitors to their computers, workers were found to be viewing e-mails up to 40 times an hour. About 33 per cent said they felt stressed by the volume of e-mails and the need to reply quickly. A further 28 per cent said they felt “driven” when they checked messages because of the pressure to respond. Just 38 per cent of workers were relaxed enough to wait a day or longer before replying.

Researchers found that many workers felt “invaded” by e-mails interrupting them as they tried to concentrate on their work. They felt pressured to switch applications to see whether the e-mails were urgent.

Female workers felt under greater pressure to respond than men. Karen Renaud, a computer scientist at Glasgow University, and Judith Ramsay, a psychologist at Paisley University, surveyed almost 200 workers. They concluded: “E-mail has become an indispensable tool in business. However, there is evidence that e-mail can exert a powerful hold over its users and that many computer users experience stress as a result of e-mail-related pressure.”

Ms Renaud said: “E-mail 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.”

This is all quite interesting (nerve racking?) because just last week I noticed the very same thing happening to me. I was constantly checking my inbox for new emails and it was severely disrupting my concentration. I chalked it up to my job in IT but it looks like other folks are experiencing the same thing. I admit that at work I’m on the Type A side and I wonder how much that has to do with my ritualistic email checking? I’m thinking things might have been less stressful and time obsessed before computers. My only exposure to the office of yesteryear is through this show, and man do I wish it were 1960 all over again. What ever happened to Martini’s for lunch? I think I was born a generation too late.