How to survive email

Vacek, M

doi:10.1109/saci.2014.6840097

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In contrast to the large concern with email triage (Cselle et al, 2007;Faulring et al, 2010;Freed et al, 2008;Nardi et al, 2002;Vacek, 2014;Venolia and Neustaedter, 2003;Whittaker et al, 2004), we found that our participants were well suited to locating important messages (or the lack thereof). We found this through the explicit linking of diary entries with usage sessions, where we found that when users were expecting an important message the sessions were quite short, suggesting that they did not spend very long looking for this message.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 84%

“…Our participants seem rather well suited to finding the messages that mattered to them. Perhaps the focus around triaging messages (Cselle et al, 2007;Faulring et al, 2010;Freed et al, 2008;Nardi et al, 2002;Vacek, 2014;Venolia and Neustaedter, 2003;Whittaker et al, 2004) is more about making it more obvious that you have received an important message.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such it has a long history of research in its forty years of existence and there have been many tools proposed to help users once they are in the inbox (Cselle et al, 2007;Faulring et al, 2010;Freed et al, 2008;Nardi et al, 2002;Venolia and Neustaedter, 2003;Whittaker et al, 2004). While many of these tools have centered around email triage, Vacek (2014) has recently reiterated the call for better email triaging tools. However, Kokkalis et al (2013) (in creating EmailValet, where task detection was done by the crowd) questioned the utility of the better detection, hypothesizing that it may be causing extra, unnecessary work.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attending to Email

2014

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Email has become deeply embedded in many users' daily lives. To investigate how email features in users lives, particularly how users attend to email, we ran a 2-week study that logged interactions with email and gathered diary entries related to individual sessions. Our study showed that the majority of attentional effort is around reading email and participating in conversations, as opposed to email management (deleting, moving, flagging emails). We found that participants attended to email primarily based on notifications, instead of the number of unread messages in their inbox. We present our results through answering several questions, and leverage conversation analysis, particularly conversational openings, to explicate several issues. Our findings point to inefficiencies in email as a communication medium, mainly, around how summons are (or are not) issued. This results in an increased burden on email users to maintain engagement and determine (or construct) the appropriate moment for interruption. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS In this article, we have several research contributions on how users attend to email, how email features in their lives, and why there is anxiety involved in email use. • The majority of attentional effort in email is around reading email and participating in conversations, as opposed to email management and triage (e.g. moving or deleting messages). • Participants in our study respond much more strongly and frequently to notifications about individual messages, as opposed to the overall criticality of the inbox (i.e. the unread count). • Our participants did not use the unread count, even though this is one of the few methods provided for monitoring email. • We leverage conversation analysis (CA), particularly around conversational openings and summonsanswer sequences to explain how email grabs attention. • We also categorize emails into four different types of requests for attention. • Overall, we find that conversations through email increase the burden of determining interruptibility on the receivers of email, when comparing with other mediums (e.g. face-to-face and over the phone).

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 84%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attending to Email

2014

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“…As such it has a long history of research in its forty years of existence and there have been a number of enhancements proposed for the inbox [11,6,10], many of which center around email triage. However, calls for better tools have been reiterated recently [21] and email overload remains a problem, even with the latest tools [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lost in Email

Hanrahan

Pérez-Quiñones

2015

Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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In this paper we describe a study exploring why users spend more time in email than originally intended, which we call getting lost in email. To study this phenomenon, we implemented an IMAP logger that also dispatched diary entries to collect data for twenty participants over a two week period. Most participants reported getting lost in email during both short and long sessions. Our analysis suggests two primary factors in getting lost: the number of emails awaiting a reply and whether or not the session caused an interruption. We conclude that much of the problem around getting lost in email is in managing the tension between promptly responding to messages while limiting engagement with email.

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Email Overload

Terra

2017

Information and Communication Overload in the Digital Age

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In this chapter email overload is presented as a component of information overload and some of its causes and consequences are identified. Furthermore, an analysis on the skills required to deal with information overload is made. Then, a critical literature review about the concept of email overload is realized, stressing aspects such as the amount of messages, personal characteristics and skills or technological issues. Solutions for this organizational problem are presented based on relevant case studies from the literature review. Key components to consider in email overload management are also identified, including information management techniques and technological options, training, time management and information behavior (individual and organizational).

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How to survive email

Cited by 3 publications

References 15 publications

Attending to Email

Attending to Email

Lost in Email

Email Overload

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