STRESS

How Emails Cause Stress in an Organization

Table of Contents

Abstract3

Chapter 1: Introduction4

Aim of the Study7

Chapter 2: Literature Review8

Email Stress8

Employees Suffering from E-mail Stress11

Personality and Email Stress16

Email Stress in Workplace19

Check Your Email Once A Day21

Read Email Only Once and Deal with It22

Don't Get Overloaded22

Communicate Expectation27

Turn off e-mail Alerts28

Get Organized29

Processed Emails Once29

Communication in the Workplace29

Email Management Tactics34

Handling the Flow of Incoming Messages34

Archiving Messages for Later Use35

Inbox Message Visibility36

Email Communication and Coordination37

Organising Tendencies40

Email Message Syntax and Semantics41

Case Study: Intel42

US Experiments42

Email Stress43

Resource-Draining Monster44

Case Study: The Stress of Modern Technology45

Chapter 3: Methodology47

Research Method47

Literature Selection Criteria47

Search Technique47

Keywords Used48

Theoretical Framework48

Reliability48

Validity49

Ethical Concerns50

Chapter 4: Findings and Conclusion52

References55

Questionnaire68

Abstract

Electronic mail has become an indispensable tool in business and academia, and personal use is increasing every day. However, there is also evidence that Email, unlike more traditional communication media, can exert a powerful hold over its users and that many computer users experience stress as a direct result of email-related pressure. This paper discusses the email stress and further investigates whether the personality traits of self-esteem and locus of control are associated with email-related stress. It further suggests that the 'stressed' orientation may be related to how distractive email is perceived to be, compared with other forms of communication.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Email is used in many different settings, ranging from the original academic environment, to the home handyman communicating with his clients. Email is much more than a mere electronification of the traditional mailed letter. Firstly, it is much faster - speeding up communication from days to minutes. Secondly, it arrives continuously, as it is sent, if the email user is online all the time - as many are these days with an increasing use of broadband and office networks. This means that the email user can potentially be dealing with email on a more or less constant basis, and indeed there is strong evidence that people are actually behaving in this way. Czerwinski et al. found that users who were asked to diarise their tasks considered email to be something that had to be dealt with throughout the day (Czerwinski, Horvitz, & Wilhite, 2004).

It is therefore unsurprising that there is mounting evidence of the intrusiveness of email. In 2001, Gartner reported that 42% of users were checking email on vacation and 23% were checking it at weekends (Westling, 2001). In 2004, Drakos and Gray at Gartner were raising concerns that excessive dependence on e-mail was threatening the maintenance of valuable organisational knowledge (Drakos and Gray, 2004). In 2005, AOL's survey of more than 4000 people found that 25% could not go without email for more than three days, 41% checked email first thing in the morning, 60% checked email on vacation, 47% checked personal email at work, and 77% had more than one account. They referred to “an obsessive-compulsive need to check it morning, noon and night”.

Although this personal email ''addiction'' is somewhat perturbing (To disturb greatly), the situation at work appears to be even more frenetic. Jackson et al. (2001) observed a group of employees' email behaviour and found that it took them ...