Humour

Squashing email distress

T A Balasubramanian on battling with a daily torrent of emails

Settling himself on Dr Don Jong’s couch, Bobo Jitter, the perpetually perplexed CIO of Bazooka Corporation, deep dives, once again, into the vagaries of his working life in the IT swampland. Dr Jong is reverently called The Oddfather, given his incorrigible preference to dream up audacious answers to gummy situations that make the technology world so tricky to navigate.

“Doc, we talked about ‘digital overload’ a few weeks ago, and it seems that I am not alone in this battle to wade through the daily torrent of email, multiple to-do lists, a cluttered desktop, documents in various file formats, and the constant distraction of mobile phones and other devices.”

“Ah, so what have you been finding out?”

“According to one article, office workers are suffering ‘email distress’ because they are swamped with messages and constantly monitoring their in-box. Most of them get tired, frustrated and unproductive as they struggle to cope with a constant deluge of emails. In one study by Duckbill & Goose, more than a third of the subjects said they thought they checked their in-box every 15 minutes, and 64% said they looked more than once an hour. When researchers fitted monitors to their computers, workers were found to be viewing emails up to 40 times an hour. Some 33% said they felt stressed by the volume of emails and the need to reply quickly. A further 28% said they felt ‘driven’ when they checked messages because of the pressure to respond. Only 38% of workers were relaxed enough to wait a day or longer before replying.”

“Oh, what a tangled Web we weave, our truckloads of email to deceive!”

“Researchers found that many workers felt ‘seduced’ by emails as they tried to concentrate on their work. They felt pressured to switch applications to see whether the emails were urgent. And further research has disclosed that it takes the average mind 64 seconds to readjust to the task at hand after being interrupted by an email. Though I would add a few seconds more if I get one of those annoying beeps that tells me that my CFO, Fin Fina, has sent me a fourth reminder to fill in my invoice forms.”

“Quite the politically correct corporate response I would expect. So people who check their email every five minutes waste 8.5 hours a week figuring out what they were doing moments before. Not something that your average boss would like to contemplate when he wonders what all his staff has been up to when he catches them staring at their screens.”

“Moreover, Doc, it had been assumed that email doesn’t cause interruptions because the recipient chooses when to check for and respond to email. To their astonishment, Duckbill & Goose found that people tend to respond to email as it arrives, taking an average of only one minute and 44 seconds to act upon a new notification. About 70% of alerts got a reaction within six seconds. That’s faster than letting the phone ring three times.”

“Ah, finally, the telephone gets to be a tortoise in the race, eh? But then, email and all these distractions are what make Bazooka tick. They are not something to be wished away, my boy. It’s like water in your boat if it rains—you keep bailing out and you keep rowing.”

“My biggest problem is that the pressure to reply results in my shooting off emails that, on second thought, would not have been written at all. My physical reflexes work so quickly that my mind catches up only 64 seconds after I have pressed ‘send.’ The second problem is that when I go back to what I was doing, I invariably lose my original chain of thought ...”

“And, of course, by this time, you are less productive, eh? It is not difficult to grasp that all this compulsive email checking and responding is a torment for your brain. Before you know it, your mind is listless and you cannot muster the enthusiasm to create another presentation, or face a vendor with coherent logic, or write a sensible report.”

“Exactly. It makes me feel low and miserable, Doc.”

“You know, there is more research on this subject. The oddest part of this knee-jerk behavior is that those who are driven to answer emails within a split second and those who helplessly sink under the perceived deluge of their mail in-box have a common emotional thread. They just do not think highly of themselves.”

“Ouch. So it all comes back to me?”

“Look at it this way, Bobo—no one has discovered what happens to trigger a ‘driven’ person to suddenly become overwhelmed. Some scientists are of the view that email distress behavior is very similar to that exhibited by many gamblers who may sit at the same slot machine in a casino for many days. These ‘one-arm bandits’—as the machines are derisively called—and your email deluge follows something called a ‘variable interval reinforcement schedule’.”

“Wow! So what does it mean, Doc?”

“This has been proven to be the most effective way to install the strongest habits. It means that rather than reward an action every time it is performed, you reward it sometimes, but not in a predictable way. With a slot machine, you keep playing on and on, even if nothing happens and it gets boring and monotonous. Then, every once in a while, there is a thrilling random sequence of symbols—maybe cherries or bells—that come together with a clash of cymbals and pipe music, and you get a big load of coins. So, too, with email, usually when I check it there is nothing interesting, but ever so often there is something wonderful—an invite to a seminar or dinner, or maybe some sensational discovery—and I experience a reward.”

“Well, Doc, if it’s going to be that hard to kick, and I still have to live with it in Bazooka, what choice do I have with email?”

“Look at it this way, Bobo. What would we do if email and mobile phones disappeared? We would be forced to use our minds again. We would have to confront reality. My own time is spent mostly in long personal chats with flesh-and-blood men and women of business, such as yourself. I have been at this for a long time now, and what I have seen disappearing is the dignified silence among those who travel and work, or even those who stay still and work. They are slaves to connectivity tools. Their work has become their cell. Their friends and families are bound to the same devices, too. You see?”

“Quite so, Doc. I cannot imagine it otherwise.”

“So kick it all out. Try a day without an invasion of your privacy by digital invaders. Or a week. Maybe you will be pleasantly shocked at what you discover—life, laughter, birds, grass. You may even get to know yourself. I have a close friend who is in jail, but he says he feels like a free bird. He used to be imprisoned by his devices when he worked. Now, without his mobile phone, without his desktop, he has come to know, for the first time, his own inner voice.”

“Hey, Doc, that’s the most interesting thing I have heard since … since I read my last email. About an hour ago.”

“Voila, look at the bright side! You have just avoided checking your screen 40 times, eh?”