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"You've Got E-Mail!" ... Shall I Deal With It Now? Electronic Mail From the Recipient's Perspective
International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
Abstract
This article considers the nature of e-mail from the recipient's perspective-what the seemingly free and easy communication really costs the recipient. Information gathered by electronic monitoring software is shown to be at odds with the results of an online survey of e-mail users' perceptions of their e-mail experience-users drastically underestimate the disruptive effects of e-mail. The conclusion is that the constant monitoring of e-mail actually reduces productivity and that there is a need for increased power, control, and awareness on the part of the e-mail recipient to ensure that e-mail remains a tool rather than a tyrant. It is necesssary to alert the user of the true cost of e-mail alerts.
... is by far the most popular form of computermediated communication (Dabbish et al., 2005) and has been widely adopted for communication in organizational contexts worldwide. The literature highlights various useful attributes contributing to the great success of e-mail as a means of communication (Renaud et al., 2006;Szóstek, 2011). Generally, these benefits include the efficient flow and exchange of information within organizations where it is used, as well as facilitating several vital activities such as task and project management, scheduling, and social communication. ...
... The inspiration for this study was the caution raised by Renaud et al. (2006) that users underestimate the disruptive effects of e-mail and that they must be alert to the true cost of e-mail. This drives the need for increasing awareness among researchers and practitioners concerning the problematic aspects associated with communication via school-based e-mail and its implications for their productivity and well-being, especially at the current time when the use of technology is enforced, in a broad sense, as a routine practice. ...
... These non-verbal cues are necessary to help enhance communication, improve understanding and ensure that the intended message is conveyed correctly (Ferri, 2017) and generate trust and empathy (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). This problematic condition imposes a critical liability on e-mail users in that they must be fully aware of the quality of their writing while crafting the text message (Renaud et al., 2006) since such physical expressions as the tone of voice, body language, intonation, and facial expression are not supported. Therefore, e-mail may increase the risk of misinterpreting the message itself or the intentions behind it. ...
E-mail is a prime tool of communication for most organizations and has, increasingly, become integrated into the organizational life of education, specifically during the recent move to online teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Managing e-mail communication and usage brings challenges due to the associated downsides but these have only been investigated to a limited extent, if at all, within the school's workplace settings; necessitating a better understanding and a holistic view into this matter from teachers' perspectives as a specific group of e-mail users. This qualitative study, therefore, explores teachers' (N = 9) concerns and the difficulties they encounter in using work-based e-mail for regular communication in a private school in the United Arab Emirates and sheds light on the regulations exercised to manage these. Overall, thematic data analysis yielded two themes representing the downsides experienced and problems encountered, and how they are managed. Eight associated categories identified the following key downsides: E-mail overload; the obligation to check e-mails constantly; distraction; wasting and extending working time; e-mail misuse, as in the case of broadcasting violations; misunderstanding; the threatening impact of e-mail when used as evidence; and issues related to confidentiality. Practical implications and consequent future research concerning proactive e-mail practices in schools are discussed as part of the domain of educational technology and distance education, all of which will be of interest to a wider audience across other working sectors to impart a better understanding of what is still lacking and what improvements can be made, resulting in introducing new and more effective horizons for work-based communications.
... According to an earlier study by Deloitte (2015), this constant connectivity begins right after awaking (over 90% of respondents look at their smartphone within 3 hours after waking) and ends only before going to bed (one third of the respondents check their phone five minutes before going to sleep). The impressive numbers in these industry reports as well as academic papers (Renaud et al. 2006) highlight two aspects of constant connectivity: First, users make sure that they are technically connected. The device is properly working, charged and within their reach. ...
... The device is properly working, charged and within their reach. Second, users display an elevated pattern of checking whether new messages have arrived and require their attendance (Renaud et al. 2006). MacCormick, Dery and Kolb (2012) emphasize a third dimension of constant connectivity. ...
... Responsiveness was measured through 5 items about responsiveness in different parts of the individual's life (with friends, at work, during shopping etc.) (e.g., "I reply to smartphone messages when I am with friends…") with a 5-point Likert scale (1 = "instantly", 2 = "within a few minutes", 3 = "within an hour", 4 = "Within a few hours", 5 = "I do not care"). Based on the work of Renaud et al. (2006), social expectations were measured using an item for expectations about the individual's own behavior and another about the behavior of the others ("In general, the people I communicate with/I expect a reply to their/my smartphone messages"). Those items were measured with a 5-point Likert scale (1 = "instantly", 2 = "within a few minutes", 3 = "within an hour", 4 = "within a few hours", 5 = "They/I do not care"). ...
Mobile technologies like the smartphone allow for checking and responding to requests almost instantaneously. The public and academic discourse is replete with critical assessments of potentially unhealthy behaviors that can result from this "constant connectivity". This pilot study explores the notion of constant connectivity and investigates why people continue to engage in such behaviors by using a student sample. We propose to conceptualize constant connectivity as a three-tiered phenomenon and study work ethic, social expectations and emotional reward as its antecedents. In contrast to our expectations, our findings do not support that work ethic serves as a good predictor for constant connectivity. However, a perceived reward for using the smartphone and beliefs regarding the expected timing between receiving and responding to a message both positively affected behaviors of constant connectivity. Our study thus suggests that individuals have an emotional connection to their smartphone rather than seeing it as a tool to conduct work with.
... This is mainly because, unlike direct or face-face oral feedback, online forms of feedback lack the visual and acoustic elements necessary to ensure that the intended message is correctly conveyed, which improves understanding and helps enhance communication [32]. They also generate trust and empathy and create the most significant interpersonal impact [33]. Accordingly, the lack of physical expressions (e.g., the tone of the voice, body language, intonation, and facial expressions) may increase the risk of misinterpreting the intended message, resulting in a defect in online feedback. ...
... Accordingly, the lack of physical expressions (e.g., the tone of the voice, body language, intonation, and facial expressions) may increase the risk of misinterpreting the intended message, resulting in a defect in online feedback. Thus, teachers must be fully aware of the quality of their online feedback interactions while constructing their online text or voice message for students since such essential communication components are not supported [33]. ...
This article provides a more fundamental overview that addresses the following provisions associated with feedback in an integrative way. First, several linguistic and definitional issues relating to the term 'feedback' are discussed. Second, the article draws attention to the challenges and implications associated with online feedback being increasingly used primarily during the contemporary shift toward online learning. Then, the article spots light on the importance of feedback at multiple levels, followed by a discussion of feedback purposes and potential benefits on student learning and progress, both in the short and long term. This article seeks to contribute to the literature on formative feedback by providing a more profound understanding of the conceptualizations of feedback by incorporating definitional, structural, and functional issues about feedback both as a construct and a practice.
... Surcharge informationnelle -Surconnexion S'ils varient en raison des modes d'évaluation et des métiers auxquels ils font référence, les chiffres relatifs à l'usage de la messagerie électronique sont impressionnants : 293 milliards de mails échangés par jour en 2019 (hors spams) et 36 consultations chaque heure de la boîte de réception de cadres dès 2006 [21]. Des publications plus récentes évoquent le chiffre de 10 mails reçus par heure pour un salarié non-cadre du tertiaire. ...
... Selon Gould et al., un salarié affecté à une tâche bureautique simple tend à se laisser distraire environ une fois toutes les cinq minutes, ce qui a pour effet d'augmenter la probabilité d'erreurs dans sa tâche principale [23]. Néanmoins, d'autres travaux pointent que l'effet perturbateur dépend du moment où l'interruption intervient par rapport à un flux naturel de travail [24] : les interruptions comme les pauses [25] q ÉTUDES & SOLUTIONS sont utiles dans le cycle d'activité, mais elles doivent être maîtrisées [19][20][21][22]. Le travail requiert, pour être efficace, des changements de focalisation attentionnelle, en particulier pour les tâches intellectuelles. ...
Au moment de leur introduction, les technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC), au premier rang desquelles la messagerie électronique, supposaient une grande liberté d’usage pour les salariés. La réalité des pratiques actuelles est parfois à l’inverse, décrite comme une « dictature de la réponse immédiate », à laquelle s’ajoutent des phénomènes de surcharge informationnelle et d’envahissement de la sphère privée, perturbant les phases de récupération et posant des questions en termes de santé mentale ou d’efficacité au travail. Les tentatives de régulation par des normes et chartes présentent d’importantes limites, notamment parce qu’elles ne prennent pas en considération la signification des flux d’information, qui peut être différente en fonction de l’activité. Cet article, en rappelant un grand nombre d’études antérieures sur le sujet, propose des points de repère et des axes de réflexion, autour desquels des pistes en matière de santé au travail peuvent être élaborées. En particulier, la construction par un collectif de travailleurs d’une modalité d’organisation mieux à même de faire face à des flux croissants d’information à traiter y est présentée.
... [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Electronic inbox management has become a progressively more important component of physicians' work as EHR adoption and patient use of secure messages have increased. [9][10][11][12] In business and information work, inbox management has been associated with stress and burnout due to the time required to handle the ever-increasing volume of emails, the task demands associated with emails, and the interruptions they create. [12][13][14] In the same way, electronic inbox management has been purported to contribute to physician stress and burnout. ...
... [9][10][11][12] In business and information work, inbox management has been associated with stress and burnout due to the time required to handle the ever-increasing volume of emails, the task demands associated with emails, and the interruptions they create. [12][13][14] In the same way, electronic inbox management has been purported to contribute to physician stress and burnout. 1,15 One study of the burden of EHR inbox notifications reported that primary care physicians (PCPs) received an average 77 inbox notifications per day, significantly higher than specialists' average of 29 notifications per day. ...
Objectives
Electronic health record systems are increasingly used to send messages to physicians, but research on physicians’ inbox use patterns is limited. This study’s aims were to (1) quantify the time primary care physicians (PCPs) spend managing inboxes; (2) describe daily patterns of inbox use; (3) investigate which types of messages consume the most time; and (4) identify factors associated with inbox work duration.
Materials and Methods
We analyzed 1 month of electronic inbox data for 1275 PCPs in a large medical group and linked these data with physicians’ demographic data.
Results
PCPs spent an average of 52 minutes on inbox management on workdays, including 19 minutes (37%) outside work hours. Temporal patterns of electronic inbox use differed from other EHR functions such as charting. Patient-initiated messages (28%) and results (29%) accounted for the most inbox work time. PCPs with higher inbox work duration were more likely to be female (P < .001), have more patient encounters (P < .001), have older patients (P < .001), spend proportionally more time on patient messages (P < .001), and spend more time per message (P < .001). Compared with PCPs with the lowest duration of time on inbox work, PCPs with the highest duration had more message views per workday (200 vs 109; P < .001) and spent more time on the inbox outside work hours (30 minutes vs 9.7 minutes; P < .001).
Conclusions
Electronic inbox work by PCPs requires roughly an hour per workday, much of which occurs outside scheduled work hours. Interventions to assist PCPs in handling patient-initiated messages and results may help alleviate inbox workload.
... Task management Adam, 2002;Bellotti et al., 2005;Ducheneaut and Bellotti, 2001;Mackay, 1988;Dabbish et al., 2005;Barley et al., 2011;Tran, 2010;Whittaker and Sidner, 1996;Zhu et al. 2006 Document delivery and archiving Adam, 2002;Denis and Assadi, 2005;Bellotti, 2001, 2003;Zhu et al., 2006 Personal archiving and filing Adam, 2002;Denis and Assadi, 2005;Tran, 2010;Whittaker and Sidner, 1996 Nearly synchronous communication Denis and Assadi, 2005;Tran, 2010;Renaud et al., 2006 Organizing and scheduling Barley et al., 2011;Ducheneaut and Bellotti, 2001;Dabbish et al., 2005 Organizational knowledge and memory Denis and Assadi, 2005;Stein and Zwass, 1995;Tran, 2010 Bellotti (2001, 2003) describe email systems as "habitats," where knowledge workers spend most of their working hours. This effective metaphor is even more applicable today, given the pervasiveness and ubiquity of mobile devices (Mazmanian et al., 2013). ...
... Fourth, email offers a nearly synchronous medium of communication, and the speed of delivery creates a response expectation and underlying pressure on recipients (Renaud et al., 2006), referred to as the "recipient's burden" (Tyler and Tang, 2003). They must track whether they have responded to messages they have received in a timely way. ...
Alors qu’il était perçu comme un moyen de communication révolutionnaire dans les années 1990, l’email a progressivement montré ses limites… si bien qu’il est devenu une source de surcharge informationnelle. Afin d’adresser ce problème, de nombreuses organisations ont adopté des réseaux sociaux d’entreprise (RSE) comme moyens de communication alternatifs. De façon surprenante, peu de recherches se sont penchées jusqu’à aujourd’hui sur le processus d’articulation de ces deux technologies et sur l’influence de cette articulation sur les pratiques de travail et le problème de la surcharge informationnelle, à travers l’analyse d’éventuels effets de complémentarité ou de substitution. Dans cet article, nous développons une étude empirique qualitative des articulations entre emails, RSE, et autres outils collaboratifs, sur la base : 1) d’une étude exploratoire de trois entreprises de secteurs variés, 2) d’une auto-ethnographie reposant sur une observation participante dans une grande entreprise de télécommunication française, et 3) d’une validation auprès d’experts. Le diagramme causal qui en résulte, permettant de spécifier l’articulation des usages de l’email, des RSE et des outils collaboratifs spécialisés, suggère trois principales contributions. Premièrement, nous développons notre compréhension du problème de surcharge informationnelle, en précisant que ce dernier n’est pas intrinsèque à l’email, et se voit de plus en plus remplacé par le concept émergent de « surcharge collaborative ». Deuxièmement, nous mettons en évidence que les RSE ne sont pas la panacée afin d’encourager de nouveaux comportements au sein de l’organisation. Troisièmement, nous mettons en exergue que les organisations ont moins besoin d’un outillage RSE que d’une stratégie de transformation digitale, mettant l’accent sur les besoins des collaborateurs, plutôt que sur la promesse des RSE de changer les cultures d’entreprises et pratiques.
... A decisão de ler ou ignorar o e-mail é dada a partir de uma análise rápida e quase instintiva por parte do receptor, que se baseia principalmente nas suas experiências anteriores, no grau de conhecimento do remetente e no interesse percebido na linha de assunto (Renaud et al., 2006). Já o trabalho de Andersson et al. (2014) constatou que as atitudes geralmente não são positivas para esta forma de comunicação, sendo necessário desenvolver formas de gerar atitudes positivas por meio do estabelecimento de relações com os destinatários do e-mail. ...
... e sobre ajuda a estranhos em outro continente. De acordo com o Relatório de Estatísticas de Email, "em 2017, o número médio de ataques de malware bem-sucedidos por e-mail está crescendo, mesmo quando as soluções antimalware se tornam cada vez mais abrangentes e eficazes contra as mais recentes ameaças de malware" (The Radicati Group, 2017).Como a decisão de ler ou ignorar o e-mail está baseada em experiências anteriores, no grau de conhecimento e no interesse dos receptores da mensagem(Renaud et al., 2006), os respondentes que optaram por não ler também podem estar pouco familiarizados com a temática doação. Nesse quesito, no Brasil ainda há um longo caminho para mudar o comportamento das pessoas para que se tornem mais generosas, pois no ranking mundial de doadores, ocupa a 75ª posição. ...
Objective: Based on social cognitive theory, this study has three objectives: i) identify receivers’ attitudes regarding the decision to read or delete a message sent via e-mail; ii) discuss the perceived intrusiveness in the intentions of receivers to respond to the appeals of the message; and iii) identify cognitive factors that predict receivers’ intention, after deciding to read, toward compliance with an e-mail appeal.
Methodology: It is quantitative, cross-sectional research with students from a higher education institution, in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. The data were interpreted through three analyses: structural equation modeling, Probit and cross-frequency.
Originality / relevance: This research advances the exploratory study of Wilson et al. (2015) by analyzing the attitudes of email recipients based on permission, in addition to considering the perceived intrusive aspect.
Results: Evidence show that, although half of the respondents chose to read the e-mail message, their perception of little utility, relevance, and familiarity with the subject may have contributed to negative attitudes towards e-mail. This perception may be interfering with the respondents’ social cognitive factors, preventing them from changing and maintaining new attitudes, especially in regions with low per capita income.
Theoretical contributions: The focus of downstream social marketing lies in changing individual behaviour, therefore, reliance on communication strategy is based on sending a social marketing message via e-mail only and may limit its effectiveness to change behaviour, especially to help people in other continents.
Management contributions: Results can also act as contributory factors for the formulation of more effective social marketing strategic actions to instigate new attitudes and behaviours, regarding the help of strangers.
Keywords: Attitudes. Behaviour change. Social cognitive theory. Downstream marketing. Decision to read the e-mail.
... A study from 2006 revealed that academics tend to check their email a staggering 30-40 times per hour. 4 Furthermore, astonishingly, 70% of emails receive a response within a mere 6 min. 5 One can appreciate why J. Robert Oppenheimer adamantly prohibited phones in the offices of the scientists at Los Alamos; the potential threat to secrecy was perhaps dwarfed by the ever-present danger of distractions. ...
... of Missing Out Burn-out Masked emotions (stress) (Barber & Santuzzi, 2015a;Przybylski et al., 2013) (Bowling et al., 2015;Misra & Stokols, 2012) (Bauer & Murray, 2018;Boudokhane-Lima & Felio, 2015;Grandy et al., 2014) Lack of autonomy Interruptions Constant solicitations Impossibility of disconnection (Cho et al., 2011;Farivar et al., 2022;Garrett & Danziger, 2007) (Ragsdale & Hoover, 2016) ( Barley et al., 2011;Camacho & Barrios, 2022;Duxbury et al., 2014;Matusik & Mickel, 2011;Mustafa & Gold, 2013) Poor quality of social relationships Isolation Loss of collective support Negative perception of telemanagement (Charalampous et al., 2019;Mann & Holdsworth, 2003;Morganson et al., 2010;Salanova et al., 2016) (Mettling, 2015) Ethical distress Urgent ideology Loss of work sense (Barber & Santuzzi, 2015;Bittman et al., 2009;Eriksen, s. d.;Renaud et al., 2006;Rosa, 2013) (Sennett, 2006) Insecurity of the work situation Disappearance/unemployement of intermediate managers (Frey & Osborne, 2017;Zaware & Megha, 2020) The negative consequences caused by excessive use of CTs coincide with several risk factors mentioned in the Gollac report INRS (2020), notably the "intensity and duration of work" dimension which is omnipresent. In light of these observations, the question of connection regulation strategies in companies that might limit the impact of overconnection on employees was examined. ...
Le développement des technologies de la communication et leur utilisation intensive sur le lieu de travail, ainsi que le "droit à la déconnexion" inscrit dans la loi Travail de 2016, ont suscité un vif intérêt pour la prévention des risques professionnels. Cette étude qualitative et quantitative vise à définir la « surconnexion numérique, les causes de l’inconfort ressenti par les salariés lorsqu’ils sont connectés, et les stratégies de régulation de la connexion au sein de l’entreprise. L’objectif est de définir des stratégies préventives ciblées sur la base des résultats de l’étude. L’activité et l’expérience vécue de la connexion numérique sont étudiées à travers un questionnaire et des entretiens, auprès d’une population de cadres de l’entreprise Orange. Les sources d’inconfort liées à la connexion numérique sont identifiées et les régulations dans l’entreprise sont analysées.
... It is however worth noting that the extent of technology's effects on the human remains disputed, as SCOT perspectives only seek to understand how humans have come to interact with their technologies and not what the technology has 'caused'. For example, the assertion that email can become a source or symbol of stress is refuted elsewhere (Chesley et al., 2003;Phillips and Reddie, 2007;Renaud et al., 2006). Overall, a 'holistic' approach to this technological dilemma demands that methodological approaches that seek to explore the phenomenon would be better served if they considered arguments from these three schools of thought discussed so far. ...
... Some people tend to immediately check and respond to these notifications, which then become external interruptions. On the other hand, the majority of computer users tend to keep email running in the background and intermittently check their inbox, regardless of their notification settings, thus engaging in voluntary self-interruptions (Renaud, Ramsay, & Hair, 2006). The extent to which individual work is currently embedded in collaborative endeavors explains the decision to be constantly available to others (on-call) and/or the need to wait for responses from others to continue one's work. ...
... Nowadays, checking the email is an inevitable part of our daily activities. Renaud and Ramsay [41] reported that some individuals check their email inbox 30 to 40 times an hour. However, no reliable tool exists for measuring the tendency for email addiction. ...
Despite the widespread use of email, our knowledge regarding the consequences of email addiction is lacking. The purpose of this study was to develop an email addiction tendency scale to evaluate its correlation to behavior and brain structure. Following this, the validity and reliability of the developed scale was investigated. We used voxel-based morphometry, correlation, and univariate regression analysis to assess the relationships between email addiction tendency scores and regional gray and white matter volumes, depression, and nonverbal reasoning abilities in a large sample of healthy young adults (n = 1152; mean age, 20.69 ± 1.84 years). The content validity ratio, content validity index, principal component analysis, and confirmatory factorial analysis all showed that the email addiction tendency scale (EATS) has high validity. Additionally, the Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency and split-half reliability coefficient showed that the EATS has high reliability. We found that email addiction tendency scores were significantly negatively correlated with nonverbal reasoning. We also observed that the email addiction tendency scores were significantly and positively correlated with depression symptom severity and gray matter volume of the left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPC) in subjects. These results indicate that email addiction tendency is associated with lower mental health outcomes and increased GMV in the left RLPC.
... Smartphones frequently send users notifications, such as emails, messages, news and app update information. Inappropriate interruptions can have multiple effects on users, such as causing annoyance, increasing anxiety levels [236], decreasing productivity [237], negatively affecting task performance [238] or impacting emotional state [236]. For instance, Perlow et al. [239] found that software engineers in a technology company had difficulties meeting deadlines due to frequent interruptions, which highlights the importance of interruption management to reduce distractions. ...
... Since early studies, when email was the only form of electronic communication, social media and mobile devices have provided a more significant technology overload (Reyt & Wiesenfeld, 2015). Because technology follows them or is always available through the portable device, employees are tempted to check, also afraid not to check (Renaud, Ramsay, & Hair, 2006). ...
During the second week of March 2020, work shifted from the county extension office to home during the Coronavirus pandemic. During COVID-19, workers were shifted into new all-digital work environments without establishing boundaries that melded the work and home environment into one (Katsabian, 2020). While this shift to remote work was possible due to technology, work-life boundaries became even blurrier. Professionals who do not have good boundaries find themselves always connected to both spheres of work and home because of their digital devices (Richardson & Rothstein, 2008). OSU Extension professionals not only made the switch to remote work from home, but they had to adjust to an all-digital 4-H program delivery at the same time. By rapidly shifting to digital work, 4-H professionals had to adapt to this change. The Change Style Indicator (Musselwhite & Ingraham, 1998) assessment classifies a person as a Conserver, Pragmatist, or Originator. Conservers prefer gradual change. Pragmatists desire change that serves a function. Originators are the most adept to change and favor quicker, more expansive change. These preferences to change would have impacted their approach to dealing with the pandemic and remote work. This study explored the adaptation of county-based OSU Extension 4-H Youth Development professionals to an all-digital environment during the virtual work period of COVID-19. Specific objectives included: (a) to describe the population by their Change Style Preferences, (b) to describe the adaptations to the all-digital work environment, (c) to describe the types of digital tools used, (d) to describe the types of digital skills learned, (e) to describe the types of digital youth development programming implemented, to describe the types of digital youth development strategies generated, and (f) to explore these selected variables (a-e) and their relationship to the Change Style Preferences. Data were gathered in two parts. The Change Style Indicator assessment was used to sort how each employee ordered along the change preference scale in part one. A follow-up survey assessed adaptations to remote work, digital tools, skills, programs, and strategies used by staff during the all-digital period. The population of 98 Ohio 4-H professionals completed both parts of the survey. There were several key findings found during the remote work period during COVID-19. Over half of the population had a Change Style Preference of a Conserver. Change Style Preferences had little or no relationships with how 4-H professionals adapted to this all-digital environment. Colleagues indicated that they depended upon each other for support. Almost all of the 4-H professionals used time during the spring to learn new skills or improve existing skills. Staff also waited to alter 4-H programming due to the constant changes related to the pandemic. A majority of the respondents indicated that they could reach new youth audiences and collaborate with other colleagues because of remote work. Ohio 4-H professionals would continue using digital youth development strategies beyond the pandemic. This research played a unique role in capturing an all-digital 4-H programming period when there was no in-person programming or access to the physical office. The shift to a digital-only environment was one of the most significant changes to the work environment for Ohio 4-H Professionals and around the world. The focus on this period does not limit future research opportunities. Technology does not go away in the future, as new digital innovations will replace the present ones.
... Incoming work-email is a stimulus that could provide the opportunity to attain rewarding goals for extraverts. Workemail provides additional stimulation and also affords an opportunity to engage in social communication and goal pursuit (Nurmi, 2011;Renaud et al., 2006). As such, it seems likely that those with higher levels of Extraversion will be bolstered by engaging with a new work-email, but the mechanism responsible for this is likely to differ at a facet level. ...
Office-based work today involves dealing with email, despite being denigrated and lauded in almost equal measures. Using the Conservation of Resources theory we examine whether Extraversion (expressed through two facets) acts as a resource to explain the differential impact that work-email has on people’s energy resources (relating to fatigue and boredom). An experience-sampling study was undertaken, whereby 54 knowledge-workers completed records of their response (n = 589) to new work-email over the course of a typical working day. Results were analysed using hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). Participants who felt tired prior to dealing with email, reported that they felt more energized afterwards (but only if they were higher on Agentic extraversion). Work-email did not re-energize extraverts when they had been bored beforehand. By examining changes in energy resources, and by measuring different facets of Extraversion, we offer theoretical and methodological contributions to advancing understanding about the role of resources in dealing with work-email. Specifically, our results suggest that Extraversion may not constitutionally be a key resource within COR, because its value and contribution to resource building is contingent on context. Implications for practitioners concerned with how best to manage digital communications at work, are discussed.
... Through their EHR inbox, physicians receive messages from other physicians, staff, and patients. Studies of inbox management in other professions repeatedly report inbox management as a source of stress due to the time it takes to go through an ever-increasing volume of emails, the task demands associated with emails, and the interruptions they create [2][3][4]. Similarly, EHR inbox management has been identified as a possible contributor to physician stress and burnout [5,6]. To understand the relationship between EHR adoption and use and stress, it is critical to examine how physicians spend time on the EHR inbox. ...
Background:
Increased work through electronic health record (EHR) messaging is frequently cited as a factor of physician burnout. However, studies to date have relied on anecdotal or self-reported measures, which limit the ability to match EHR use patterns with continuous stress patterns throughout the day.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to collect EHR use and physiologic stress data through unobtrusive means that provide objective and continuous measures, cluster distinct patterns of EHR inbox work, identify physicians' daily physiologic stress patterns, and evaluate the association between EHR inbox work patterns and physician physiologic stress.
Methods:
Physicians were recruited from 5 medical centers. Participants (N=47) were given wrist-worn devices (Garmin Vivosmart 3) with heart rate sensors to wear for 7 days. The devices measured physiological stress throughout the day based on heart rate variability (HRV). Perceived stress was also measured with self-reports through experience sampling and a one-time survey. From the EHR system logs, the time attributed to different activities was quantified. By using a clustering algorithm, distinct inbox work patterns were identified and their associated stress measures were compared. The effects of EHR use on physician stress were examined using a generalized linear mixed effects model.
Results:
Physicians spent an average of 1.08 hours doing EHR inbox work out of an average total EHR time of 3.5 hours. Patient messages accounted for most of the inbox work time (mean 37%, SD 11%). A total of 3 patterns of inbox work emerged: inbox work mostly outside work hours, inbox work mostly during work hours, and inbox work extending after hours that were mostly contiguous to work hours. Across these 3 groups, physiologic stress patterns showed 3 periods in which stress increased: in the first hour of work, early in the afternoon, and in the evening. Physicians in group 1 had the longest average stress duration during work hours (80 out of 243 min of valid HRV data; P=.02), as measured by physiological sensors. Inbox work duration, the rate of EHR window switching (moving from one screen to another), the proportion of inbox work done outside of work hours, inbox work batching, and the day of the week were each independently associated with daily stress duration (marginal R2=15%). Individual-level random effects were significant and explained most of the variation in stress (conditional R2=98%).
Conclusions:
This study is among the first to demonstrate associations between electronic inbox work and physiological stress. We identified 3 potentially modifiable factors associated with stress: EHR window switching, inbox work duration, and inbox work outside work hours. Organizations seeking to reduce physician stress may consider system-based changes to reduce EHR window switching or inbox work duration or the incorporation of inbox management time into work hours.
... The sources defined in [7,8,9] describes about context of e-mails where first denotes about group of employees of an organization and their privileges to do based on questionnaire and strata, second denotes on social networks help out diverse options and strong decision making approach, and third states about benefits and drawbacks to be faced towards recipient's perspective, true cost 0f e-mail alerts. In [10,11,12] describes about ways to search a text or string in the mail message whether in outlook or Gmail category. ...
Nowadays, there were many emails coming from different aged and community persons or organizations to our mail, there to find some text gives only content of mail that matched with the patterns. The searching is required because our mail is loaded with many mails as time passes, here to remember everyday mail and its content is not possible for a human. Hence, to search for some text in the mail takes little time only to show the emails that consist of searching content. The output lists many mails where the required content is matched. It is restricted to the mails in the current domain only. To search in some text (patterns) irrespective of various domains, there is no option in available options in the mail. Hence, the proposed method aims for searching some text (many patterns) in various domains in the mail categorically and this searching spans also in the attached files irrespective of type. The output of this proposed approach outputs all the mails possessing that part of full text or exactly as it is that appears. The result obtained also outputs the mails that consist of content that searched categorically. The tentative output screens are specified in the results chapter and the obtained results provide user flexibility to navigate through the mails in order to fix the correct mail required rather than spending a lot of time for actual content in the restricted viewing pane of the mails.
... [4] [6] revealed that email is one of the fundamental internet technologies, a tool used by nearly every person with an internet connection. It allows you to, at no cost; send a letter of unlimited length to one person or many people at once, [10]. It arrives almost instantly, and they can reply straight away, [6].The history of electronic mail started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1965 under the name Mailbox, with the aim of sending files from one computer to another. ...
... Comparable cognitive and behavioral impediments have been found in field studies of organizational settings. Behavioral patterns promoted by digital technologies such as frequent task-switching, digital interruptions, and the attentional demands from multiple online and offline information streams result in lowered productivity, errors, and weakened memory and understanding (González & Mark, 2004;Mark, González, & Harris, 2005;Mark, Gudith, & Klocke, 2008;Renaud, Ramsay, & Hair, 2006;Leiva, Böhmer, Gehring, & Krüger, 2012;Levy, Rafaeli, & Ariel, 2016;Foerde, Knowlton, & Poldrack, 2006;Greenfield, 2009). A study by KC (2014) found that as Emergency Room doctors multitask more, they make fewer diagnoses resulting in more patients returning to the Emergency Room within 24 hours after discharge. ...
Digital technologies have fundamentally altered emergency and crisis management work. This essay sketches the macro-environmental transformations wrought by digital technologies in emergency and crisis management and outlines their implications for managerial reasoning and decision-making. It proposes multi-level approaches to improve congruence between crisis managers and their environments to reduce cognitive and organizational barriers and improve decision-making. The future of crisis management lies in reducing the misalignment between personal, proximal, and distal environmental conditions.
... It is considered a social norm not to interrupt a person while they are concentrating on something, unless sufficiently important arguments would justify it [3]. One reason behind this is that, especially in today's performance-oriented society, an interruption also means distraction, which consequently might lead to reduced productivity [24,29]. Given this, however, it seems even more desirable to have systems that interrupt our busy everyday life and help us stay healthy, e.g. by suggesting well-being tasks. ...
Smart home systems increasingly find their way into private households and efforts are being made to integrate lifelike user interfaces (e.g. social robots) to facilitate the interaction with the smart environment. Considering this, the question arises which benefits such embodied user interfaces offer compared to conventional devices. We are presenting a user study within a smart office setting in which 84 participants were either interrupted by a tablet, a non-expressive social robot, or an expressive social robot by being asked to perform tasks regarding their physical well-being. Results show that each type of user interface bears different advantages. While the tablet comes with a significantly higher usability and a lower level of perceived workload, both versions of the social robot outperform the tablet in terms of social perception and the overall evaluation of the interaction. Overall, the results provide valuable insights informing designers of smart environments which device to choose to enhance certain aspects of the quality of interaction.
... A survey on interruptions in the workplace revealed that senior developers experienced on average more than 120 interruptions during eight working hours [1]. Although interruptions are inevitable especially when performing collaborative tasks, frequent and uncontrolled interruptions potentially distract workers and fragment their working time [2], [3]. Previous studies have suggested that switching to an interrupting task forces a worker to temporarily store and retrieve information on the original task from his/her working memory, thus increasing the cognitive workload [4], [5]. ...
In order not to disrupt a team member concentrating on his/her own task, the interrupter needs to wait for a proper time. In this research, we examined the feasibility of predicting prospective interruptible times of office workers who use PCs. An analysis of actual working data collected from 13 participants revealed the relationship between uninterruptible durations and four features, i.e. type of application software, rate of PC operation activity, activity ratio between keystrokes and mouse clicks, and switching frequency of application software. On the basis of these results, we developed a probabilistic work continuance model whose probability changes according to the four features. The leave-one-out cross-validation indicated positive correlations between the actual and the predicted durations. The medians of the actual and the predicted durations were 539 s and 519 s. The main contribution of this study is the demonstration of the feasibility to predict uninterruptible durations in an actual working scenario.
... Cinquante pour cent des employés interrogés par Hair, Renaud, et Ramsay (2007) vérifient leur boîte de réception toutes les heures et trente-cinq pour cent toutes les quinze minutes. Un nouvel email serait lu en moyenne dans les deux minutes suivant sa réception, mais la majorité est lue dans les six secondes (Jackson et al., 2003), et nous le faisons alors même que nous savons que cela va augmenter notre sentiment de surcharge de travail (Renaud, Ramsay, & Hair, 2006). ...
Les interruptions sont l’un des phénomènes les plus perturbants pour la concentration au travail. Alors que leur nombre ne cesse d’augmenter avec la multiplication des notifications et l’ouverture des espaces de travail, le milieu professionnel commence à se rendre compte qu’elles nuisent à la productivité, mais aussi au bien-être en entreprise. C’est pourquoi un grand nombre de scientifiques ont cherché à comprendre les causes et les conséquences spécifiques des interruptions, en étudiant les différentes situations possibles. De nombreuses questions restent toutefois sans réponses.Dans ce travail de thèse, nous nous sommes focalisés sur l’effet de quatre types d’interruption, pour lesquels soit les causes ne sont pas ou mal connues, soit les conséquences n’avaient encore jamais été étudiées : (i) la complexité de la tâche interruptrice (ii) le moment de survenue de l’interruption (iii) la source de l’interruption et (iv) le caractère agréable de la tâche interruptrice. Nous nous sommes également intéressés à deux contextes de travail bien spécifiques, à savoir le tri d’emails et la détection d’armes dissimulées dans des valises.Avec 6 études, nous avons pu en apprendre davantage sur les effets de chacune des caractéristiques des interruptions précédemment citées, ainsi que l’effet des interruptions en fonction de la tâche qu’elles suspendent. Nous avons également pu identifier précisément les processus cognitifs impliqués dans la suspension de la tâche interrompue, en fonction de sa caractéristique manipulée.Ce travail de thèse a ainsi apporté un certain nombre de découvertes empiriques, que nous avons discuté à la lumière de la littérature et de différents modèles théoriques, auxquels nous avons proposé quelques améliorations. Ces travaux ont également un intérêt pratique, car ils nous ont permis de proposer des recommandations sur l’organisation des espaces de travail et sur l’utilisation des moyens de communication en entreprise.
Human behavior in cyber space is extremely complex. Change is the only constant as technologies and social contexts evolve rapidly. This leads to new behaviors in cybersecurity, Facebook use, smartphone habits, social networking, and many more. Scientific research in this area is becoming an established field and has already generated a broad range of social impacts. Alongside the four key elements (users, technologies, activities, and effects), the text covers cyber law, business, health, governance, education, and many other fields. Written by international scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this handbook brings all these aspects together in a clear, user-friendly format. After introducing the history and development of the field, each chapter synthesizes the most recent advances in key topics, highlights leading scholars and their major achievements, and identifies core future directions. It is the ideal overview of the field for researchers, scholars, and students alike.
Human behavior in cyber space is extremely complex. Change is the only constant as technologies and social contexts evolve rapidly. This leads to new behaviors in cybersecurity, Facebook use, smartphone habits, social networking, and many more. Scientific research in this area is becoming an established field and has already generated a broad range of social impacts. Alongside the four key elements (users, technologies, activities, and effects), the text covers cyber law, business, health, governance, education, and many other fields. Written by international scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this handbook brings all these aspects together in a clear, user-friendly format. After introducing the history and development of the field, each chapter synthesizes the most recent advances in key topics, highlights leading scholars and their major achievements, and identifies core future directions. It is the ideal overview of the field for researchers, scholars, and students alike.
Research suggests that the temporal flexibility advertised to crowdworkers by crowdsourcing platforms is limited by both client-imposed constraints (e.g., strict completion times) and crowdworkers’ tooling practices (e.g., multitasking). In this paper, we explore an additional contributor to workers’ limited temporal flexibility: the design of crowdsourcing platforms, namely requiring crowdworkers to be ‘on call’ for work. We conducted two studies to investigate the impact of having to be ‘on call’ on workers’ schedule control and job control. We find that being ‘on call’ impacted: (1) participants’ ability to schedule their time and stick to planned work hours, and (2) the pace at which participants worked and took breaks. The results of the two studies suggest that the ‘on-demand’ nature of crowdsourcing platforms can limit workers’ temporal flexibility by reducing schedule control and job control. We conclude the paper by discussing the implications of the results for: (a) crowdworkers, (b) crowdsourcing platforms, and (c) the wider platform economy.
As sleep problems can impair quality of work, an online questionnaire was used to examine relationships between sleepiness and decision making while obtaining unobtrusive indices of performance. Participants (N = 344) completed the Insomnia Severity Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and the Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire in a Qualtrics survey while reporting mobile phone use. Qualtrics recorded the time and the number of clicks required to complete each page of the survey. Multiple regression indicated that insomnia was associated with daytime sleepiness and Hypervigilance, and mobile phone use before bed. Participants with moderate sleepiness required a greater number of clicks to complete the questionnaire. Greater sleepiness was associated with longer times to complete these self-assessment tasks. Clinically significant sleepiness produces changes in performance that can be detected from online responsivity. As sleepy individuals can be appreciably and quantitatively slower in performing subjective self-assessment tasks, this argues for objective measures of sleepiness and automated interventions and the design of systems that allow better quality sleep.Practitioner summary: Work can require processing of electronic messages, but 24/7 accessibility increases workload, causes fatigue and potentially creates security risks. Although most studies use people's self-reports, this study monitors time and clicks required to complete self-assessment rating scales. Sleepiness affected online responsivity, decreasing online accuracy and increasing response times and hypervigilance.
A tanulmány arra vállalkozik, hogy felvázolja a szabadúszás jelenségének szakirodalmi, elsősorban rendszertani (munkagazdaságtani, munkajogi) hátterét, terminológiai környezetét. A szabadúszást az atipikus foglalkoztatás és az önfoglalkoztatás részeként határozza meg, részletes hazai és nemzetközi szakirodalmi, valamint jogszabályi áttekintés alapján mutatja be a különböző önfoglalkoztatási módozatok, azon belül a szabadúszók jellemzőit. A tanulmány kitér az új foglalkoztatási módokra, és tárgyalja ezek statisztikai-mérési nehézségeit. Megvizsgálja a bújtatott (rejtett, színlelt) önfoglalkoztatás jelenségét. Röviden bemutatja a szabadúszás jelentőségét a vállalkozásfejlesztés és a gazdasági növekedés szempontjából. A szabadúszók jellemzőinek ismertetése után magyar nyelven először adok közre egy olyan, a pszichológiában kidolgozott integráló modellt, amely alkalmas lehet a szabadúszás (és általában az önfoglalkoztatás) rétegeinek kibontására.
In the last 25 years, work‐email activity has been studied across domains and disciplines. Yet, despite the abundance of research available, a comprehensive, unifying framework of how work‐email activity positively impacts both well‐being and work‐performance outcomes has yet to emerge. This is a timely and significant concern; work‐email is the most prominent and popular form of work communication but it is still unclear what people need to do to be effective emailers at work. To address this, we undertook a rigorous cross‐disciplinary systematic literature review of 62 empirical papers. Using action regulation theory, we developed a multi‐action, multi‐goal framework and found four ‘super’ actions that consistently predict effectiveness (positive well‐being and work‐performance outcomes). These actions involve: (i) communicating and adhering to work‐email access boundaries; (ii) regularly triaging emails (iii) sending work‐relevant email and (iv) being civil and considerate in work‐email exchanges. We found that super actions are engaged when workers have the resources to appropriately regulate their activity, and can attend to their self, task and social needs. Our framework synthesizes a broad and disparate research field, providing valuable insights and guiding future research directions. It also offers practical recommendations to organizations and individuals; by understanding and encouraging the adoption of work‐email super actions, effective work‐email practices can be enhanced.
The Slow City Movement, which was launched in 1986 as an objection to the rapid urbanization approach that continues at a dizzying pace in the world, to increase the quality of life, to develop the understanding of sustainable consumerism, It is a cultural movement that focuses on supporting local production, protecting and protecting their identity and cultural values, and focuses on slowing down the pace in cities and calming them down. Taking the title of slow city also contributes to the association with tourism and to the spread of slow tourism. However, being a slow city does not produce the expected effects in every slow city. On the contrary, its commercialization in many slow cities draws population, construction and traffic pressure to the region. In some slow cities, it did not meet the expectations, and there was no change in tourism turnover, number of visitors, and real estate values due to being a slow city. As a matter of fact, it reveals that each city has experienced this process under the influence of different dynamics.
This study aims to evaluate the slow city movement, which is spreading in the world, from a critical point of view through Turkey and Iran. In this context, the philosophy of the slow city movement will be emphasized, Slow city practices in Turkey and Iran will be explained and the effects and results of slow tourism in both countries will be evaluated and these results will be interpreted. The socio-economic and spatial effects of the slow city on the cities of Turkey and Iran, development of local identity and preservation of cultural values, Answers will be sought to questions such as central and local decision makers' support to the …
Notifications are one of the most prevailing mechanisms on smartphones and personal computers to convey timely and important information. Despite these benefits, smartphone notifications demand individuals' attention and can cause stress and frustration when delivered at inopportune timings. This paper investigates the effect of individuals' smartphone usage behavior and mood on notification response time. We conduct an in-the-wild study with more than 18 participants for five weeks. Extensive experiment results show that the proposed regression model is able to accurately predict the response time of smartphone notifications using current user's mood and physiological signals. We explored the effect of different features for each participant to choose the most important user-oriented features in order to to achieve a meaningful and personalised notification response prediction. On average, our regression model achieved over all participants an MAE of 0.7764 ms and RMSE of 1.0527 ms. We also investigate how physiological signals (collected from E4 wristbands) are used as an indicator for mood and discuss the individual differences in application usage and categories of smartphone applications on the response time of notifications. Our research sheds light on the future intelligent notification management system.
Email is the communication application most widely used in organizations. Its use in the workplace has increased fourfold since 2006. Yet, email is associated with a number of negative aspects, most prominently 'email overload', defined as an individual's perception of being overwhelmed by emails that s/he considers too numerous to handle. Email overload is a theoretically interesting phenomenon because of its adverse organizational outcomes. Moreover, it continues to be vexing in practice because it has proved intractable to manage. We problematize the current understanding of email overload as being due to lack of understanding of its technology fit-related antecedents and job-related outcomes, and then investigate how email overload is influenced by a lack of fit between the communication applications that the organization provides to individuals and those that (1) they want, and that (2) are suitable for their tasks. We hypothesize that such lack of fit leads to email by default, defined as the perception of email being used improperly, when other communication applications would be better suited. Email by default is then hypothesized to lead to email overload. We further investigate job-related outcomes of email overload. To achieve this, we conducted a two-stage, multi-method empirical study in a large manufacturing organization in a sequential research design, where the first study (qualitative-interviews) informed the second (quantitative-survey). Our results support the hypothesized relationships. The paper theoretically broadens the scholarly discourse on email overload to include novel antecedents and outcomes in the ongoing quest to establish a more complete understanding of this phenomenon.
This paper presents the results of a study designed to identify the cues employees use to identify an email as important and/or urgent. Taking an emic perspective, a qualitative research methodology is used to analyze interview responses from knowledge workers. Our findings support the notion that employees use strategies similar to those encapsulated in Mitchell et al.’s (1997) operationalization of stakeholder salience when evaluating an email's importance and/or urgency. Results from this study can be used to design email policies to support knowledge worker performance. Cet article présente les résultats d'une étude visant à identifier les indices utilisés par les employés pour identifier un courriel comme important et/ou urgent. Dans une perspective émique, une méthodologie de recherche qualitative est utilisée pour analyser les réponses obtenues en entrevue avec des travailleurs du savoir. Nos résultats appuient l'idée que les employés utilisent des stratégies semblables à celles décrites dans l'opérationnalisation de la saillance des parties prenantes entreprise par Mitchell et al. (1997) lors de l'évaluation de l'importance et/ou de l'urgence d'un courriel. Les résultats de cette étude pourront servir à concevoir des politiques de messagerie ciblant l'amélioration du rendement des travailleurs du savoir.
Voice assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa and Google Home, increasingly find their way into consumer homes. Their functionality, however, is currently limited to being passive answer machines rather than proactively engaging users in conversations. Speakers' proactivity would open up a range of important application scenarios, including health services, such as checking in on patient states and triggering medication reminders. It remains unclear how passive speakers should implement proactivity. To better understand user perceptions, we ran a 3-week field study with 13 participants where we modified the off-the-shelf Google Home to become proactive. During the study, our speaker proactively triggered conversations that were essentially Experience Sampling probes allowing us to identify when to engage users. Applying machine-learning, we are able to predict user responsiveness with a 71.6% accuracy and find predictive features. We also identify self-reported factors, such as boredom and mood, that are significantly correlated with users' perceived availability. Our prototype and findings inform the design of proactive speakers that verbally engage users at opportune moments and contribute to the design of proactive application scenarios and voice-based experience sampling studies.
A tanulmány a magyarországi szabadúszókat vizsgáló feltáró kutatási program első szakaszának eredményeit mutatja be. A téma hiányzó hazai feldolgozottságából kifolyóan az írás első felében részletes hazai és nemzetközi szakirodalmi, valamint jogszabályi áttekintés alapján a különböző önfoglalkoztatási módozatok, azon belül is a szabadúszók jellemzőit definiáljuk. Kutatásunk második felében kvalitatív és kvantitatív módszertanok alkalmazásával vizsgáljuk a magyarországi szabadúszók helyzetét, illetve tevékenységét. A kvalitatív elemzés eredményeit 10 szabadúszóval készült félig strukturált interjú, míg a kvantitatív szakaszét online kérdőíves megkérdezés 152 egyedi kitöltése adja. Az elemzések alapján a magyarországi szabadúszók a nemzetközi trendeknek megfelelően több nyelvet beszélő, kifejezetten magasan képzett és magukat aktívan fejlesztő szakemberek. Az elvégzett munka minősége tapasztalataink szerint kifejezetten fontos szempont, ugyanis az új feladatokat elsősorban a korábbi referenciák, ismeretségek, nem pedig a különböző csatornákon feladott hirdetések alapozzák meg. A kapott válaszok alapján szabadúszó életforma nagyobb fokú szabadságot jelent, ami akár a családi kapcsolatok terén is előnyt jelenthet. A levont következtetések legfőbb korlátozását a reprezentativitás hiánya jelenti, amelyet a kutatás feltáró jellege, valamint a teljes sokaság demográfiai jellemzőinek ismeretének hiánya indokol.
Kulcszavak: szabadúszók, freelancer, platform gazdaság, gig economy
Due to their enormous impact on stakeholders and the entire community, both academics and practitioners have been giving closer attention to societal marketing initiatives recently. In the context of Afghanistan's banking industry, this study investigates the relationship between societal marketing and corporate reputation. The purpose of the current study is to see if Afghanistan's banking industry's societal marketing activities help improve the bank's reputation among stakeholders and the community or if they want just to increase profits. The data were collected through an online survey from the banking industry stakeholders based in Kabul. The findings of empirical research are presented, and the relevant findings are discussed.
The study is done with an aim of exploring the factors of rural- urban migration in Cumilla city. 106 randomly selected migrants were interviewed and for this task we have used both open and closed-ended questionnaires. With the help of SPSS 21 Statistical tool we have analysis this raw data and describe the statistics. The well decorate data results show that the flow of movement of people from different areas of Bangladesh to Cumilla city area are mainly for living a better life, to earn more money, for employment opportunities educational facilities etc. The result shows that 80 % people who migrate their ages is between 20 to 40 years. Most of the migrated people come to Cumilla city from nearer district and urban villages of Cumilla. Here also found that both pull and push factors are causes for migration.
A primary well-controlled study of 900 participants found that personal presentation choices in professional emails (non-content changes like Profile Avatar 8 Signature) impact the recipient’s perception of the sender’s personality and the quality of the email itself. By understanding the role these choices play, employees can gain better control over how they influence the recipient of their messages. Results further indicate that although some variations can positively impact the recipient’s view of the sender, these same variations often also have negative side effects. This implies that many seemingly innocuous presentation decisions should be made in the context of who is receiving the email, and if these effects negatively impact the content of the message. For example, although statements in a Signature about the email having been written on a phone are included to preemptively apologize for typing mistakes, this causes the sender to appear less agreeable, less conscientious, and less open, and the email itself appears less well written and more poorly formatted. This is surprising given that the email itself was not changed in the study.
This exploratory study examines the impact of email as a primary communication technology upon the perceptions and work behaviors of higher education professionals who support university administrative functions. Based on the interviews and observations of 23 participants, key themes emerged regarding the relationship of email to the interactions of higher education professionals. Findings are presented in three sections: (1) impact on productivity, (2) impact on social interactions, and (3) impact on well-being. The professionals who participated in this study articulated the importance of face-to-face interaction particularly in complex situations; they recognize the need to manage email sender expectations to deal with their own work stresses, and strive to temper the negative impact of constant disruption by email on workplace productivity.
Working in an environment with constant interruptions is known to affect stress, but how do interruptions affect emotional expression? Emotional expression can have significant impact on interactions among coworkers. We analyzed the video of 26 participants who performed an essay task in a laboratory while receiving either continual email interruptions or receiving a single batch of email. Facial videos of the participants were run through a convolutional neural network to determine the emotional mix via decoding of facial expressions. Using a novel co-occurrence matrix analysis, we showed that with batched email, a neutral emotional state is dominant with sadness being a distant second, and with continual interruptions, this pattern is reversed, and sadness is mixed with fear. We discuss the implications of these results for how interruptions can impact employees' well-being and organizational climate.
Virtual offices give employees the ability to work anytime, anywhere, using information and communication technologies, thereby blurring the temporal and geographical boundaries of work. Workplace stress is thus allowed to spill over from traditional offices to virtual offices, and vice versa. This review article presents key research from work psychology and information systems on workplace stress experienced in virtual offices (interruptions, workload and the work-home interface). It further discusses the main threats faced by organizations and office managers: reduced social interactions, poor communication, and deviant behaviors. Suggestions are also offered to practitioners seeking to design virtual offices in which employees can feel and work well, and to academics seeking to research this phenomenon in a transdisciplinary way.
The aim of this study is to display the current email usage among academics and its influence on the field of science by analyzing qualitative interviews and media diaries with 55 German-speaking academics. Emails pose a particular challenge for separating work and personal spheres. Mobile media such as tablets and smartphones reinforce the penetrating effects of emails. Our results show that scholars hardly engage in a temporal and spatial separation of the spheres when accessing work emails. This is one of the reasons why emails contribute to a perception of information overload and stress. While emails cause problems in many fields, we assume that it is particularly pronounced among the scientific field. In order to raise awareness for this topic and to facilitate the handling of emails in the scientific community, we recommend introducing email workshops and regulations at universities.
A growing body of information systems (IS) literature advocates the explicit use of suitable critical theories to explore power issues in developing countries and make IS research findings more accessible to systems’ users and the wider audiences for consumption. We respond to this debate in IS by applying critical research perspectives to discuss the power implications of Internet and e-mail resource distribution in a Ghanaian teaching hospital in a way that addresses clinicians’ concerns of using Internet services for healthcare practices. We applied critical qualitative approaches to collect and analyze data from clinicians, healthcare managers, and the hospital’s internal documents. It was found that managers exercised their powers to allocate Internet facilities selectively on the contestable account that clinicians might misuse the Internet if they were given access while clinicians sought to empower themselves as co-planners who could make technology choices and add new value to the existing normative decisions of the managers. The outcomes show that critical researchers can directly relate to decision-making powers, recognize their powers and expose structures that surround them, and emancipate people whose Internet resource needs are restricted to co-involve in technology adoption and distribution processes.
Email is a ubiquitous and work-critical tool for many people at work today. Research suggests that people engage a range of actions to deal with work-email, with the same email action (e.g. turning off email) facilitating some goals (e.g. for well-being) but hindering others (e.g. for being helpful). Using mixed-methods across two studies with knowledge workers who use work-email, we examined whether individual differences in personality can explain why there is a goal paradox of work-email actions. The theory of purposeful work behavior (TPWB) informs our approach. In Study 1, semi-structured interviews (N = 28) uncovered (using thematic analysis) a comprehensive list of 72 work-email actions that differently impact goals related to Work, Well-being, Control and Concern. Study 2 then addressed whether personality traits could predict work-email activity directed towards these four goals. A multi-level survey (N = 341; n = 5575) of work-email activity was analyzed using cross-level hierarchical linear modelling. We found that action-goal relationships in dealing with work-email, could be predicted by people's trait-relevant goal striving. This advances understanding of why work-email actions can be both beneficial and problematic for people. Use of habitual actions also interacted with personality to strengthen action-goal relationships, except for those with low Emotional Stability. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for theory, policy and practice.
Emotions are part of human communication shaping mimics and revealing feelings. Therefore, conveying emotions has been integrated in text-based messaging applications using emojis. While visualizing emotions in text messages has been investigated in prior work, we studied the effects of emotion sharing by augmenting the WhatsApp Web user interface. For this, we designed and developed four different visualizations to represent emotions detected through facial expression recognition of chat partners using a web cam. Investigating emotion representation and its effects, we conducted a four weeks longitudinal study with 28 participants being inquired via 48 semi-structured interviews and 64 questionnaires. Our findings revealed that users want to maintain control over their emotions, particularly regarding sharing, and their preference to view positive emotions avoiding unpleasant social situations. Based on that, we phrased four design recommendations stimulating novel approaches for augmenting chats.
Electronic mail, email, is one of the most widespread computer applications today.
While email in general is very popular among its users, there are also drawbacks with
email usage: an increasing amount of messages that overwhelm users, systems that are
too complex for naive users and at the same time do not support the needs of experienced users.
In order to answer the main research question “Which design solutions could
improve the situation of individual email users in a working context when it comes to
communication and handling large numbers of incoming and stored email messages?”
three studies conducted in email users’ working environment are described. The studied organisations are one academic research laboratory, one technical company, and
one primary medical service organisation. The studies are focused on email usage,
organisation of email messages, novice versus experienced users’ needs, managers’
email usage, and information and communication overflow.
The results indicate that the different strategies used to handle email are a matter of
a balance between advantages and disadvantages of these strategies. The choice
between them is depending on the users’ total work situation and cannot be understood
by investigating the email communication alone.
One advantage of email is the cognitive comfort it brings to its users by liberating
them from thinking about tasks that can be solved by sending an email message, but
this advantage disappears when the sender cannot trust that the receiver will act upon
the message.
Users develop their handling of email with experience and work position. The
media that managers use to handle the increased communication that follows with a
higher position are email and meetings. One habit that do not change with position is
to allow incoming messages to interrupt other work tasks, despite the asynchronous
nature of email. This is particularly remarkable for managers who often complain that
they need more uninterrupted time. The interruptions may partly be attributed to the
lack of functionality in email systems to adapt the interfaces to the users’ work habits.
In this case incoming messages result in a signal regardless the importance of them.
Email is a part of an information and communication flow. Some users have problems handling this flow. Overflow problems could be diminished by making senders of
messages more aware of the receivers’ communicative situation. Email systems could
provide feedback to senders of messages based on the receivers’ perception of his/her
situation.
One of the studies indicates that it may be even more complicated to replace an old
email system than introducing an email system for the first time in an organisation.
The investment experienced users have made in the old system may be substantial.
A model of time usage for organisation of email messages is also presented in order
to compare different strategies.
Several design solutions are suggested with respect to folder usage, sorting email
messages into folders, reducing the number of stored messages, and tailoring the email
system to the user’s work habits.
ABSTRACT It is widely acknowledged,that many,professionals suffer from “e-mail overload.” This article presents findings from in-depth fieldwork that examined,this phenome- non, uncovering six key challenges of task management in e-mail. Analysis of quali- tative and quantitative data suggests that it is not simply the quantity but also the col- HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION, 2005, Volume 20, pp. 89–138 Copyright © 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Victoria Bellotti is a social scientist with an interest in computer-mediated com-
Empirical studies of user activity, based on data collected from the systems with which users interact, present technical challenges related to the transformation of data streams to a form suitable for analysis. In this paper we discuss the particular challenges confronted during a study of user interruption behaviour based on low-level "keystroke" data and the ways in which these challenges were addressed. We also report on a method of data cleaning and analytical preparation that was developed and consider its effectiveness and potential applicability for similar studies.
E-mail research encompasses a vast and diverse body of work that accumulated over the past 30 years. In this article, we take a critical look at the research literature and ask two simple questions: What is e-mail research? Can it help us reinvent e-mail? Rather than defining an overarching framework, we survey the literature and identify three metaphors that have guided e-mail research up to this day: e-mail as a file cabinet extending human information processing capabilities, e-mail as a production line and locus of work coordination, and, finally, e-mail as a communication genre supporting social and organizational processes. We propose this taxonomy so that designers of future e-mail systems can forge their own direction of research, with knowledge of other directions that have been explored in the past. As an illustration of the possible future work we want to encourage with this review, we conclude with a description of several guidelines for the reinvention of e-mail inspired by our journey through the literature.
Studied attributions in a purely chance task (predicting coin tosses) as a function of either a descending, ascending, or random sequence of outcomes and as a function of whether the S performed the task himself or observed another S performing the task. A primary effect was predicted; early successes would induce a skill orientation towards the task. Data from 90 male undergraduates support the prediction. Ss in the descending condition rated themselves as significantly better at predicting the outcomes of coin tosses than Ss in either of the other 2 groups. This group also overremembered past successes and expected more future successes than the other 2 groups. Involvement had the effect of increasing Ss' expectations of future successes and tended to increase their evaluation of their past performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted a series of 6 studies involving 631 adults to elucidate the "illusion of control" phenomenon, defined as an expectancy of a personal success probability inappropriately higher than the objective probability would warrant. It was predicted that factors from skill situations (competition, choice, familiarity, involvement) introduced into chance situations would cause Ss to feel inappropriately confident. In Study 1 Ss cut cards against either a confident or a nervous competitor; in Study 2 lottery participants were or were not given a choice of ticket; in Study 3 lottery participants were or were not given a choice of either familiar or unfamiliar lottery tickets; in Study 4, Ss in a novel chance game either had or did not have practice and responded either by themselves or by proxy; in Study 5 lottery participants at a racetrack were asked their confidence at different times; finally, in Study 6 lottery participants either received a single 3-digit ticket or 1 digit on each of 3 days. Indicators of confidence in all 6 studies supported the prediction. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Email has come to play a central role in task management, yet email tool features have remained relatively static in recent years, lagging behind users? evolving practices. The Taskmaster system narrows this gap by recasting email as task management and embedding task-centric resources directly in the client. In this paper, we describe the field research that inspired Taskmaster and the principles behind its design. We then describe how user studies conducted with ?live? email data over a two-week period revealed the value of a task-centric approach to email system design and its potential benefits for overloaded users.
Email consumes significant time and attention in the workplace. We conducted an organizational survey to understand how and why people attend to incoming email messages. We examined people's ratings of message importance and the actions they took on specific email messages, based on message characteristics and characteristics of receivers and senders. Respondents kept half of their new messages in the inbox and replied to about a third of them. They rated messages as important if they were about work and required action. Importance, in turn, had a modest impact on whether people replied to their incoming messages and whether they saved them. The results indicate that factors other than message importance (e.g., their social nature) also determine how people handle email. Overall, email usage reflects attentional differences due both to personal propensities and to work demands and relationships.
Email has become overloaded as users make use of email tools for performing a wide range of activities. Previous studies have demonstrated the different strategies employed by email users to manage messages. However, we have little information regarding how to explain those differences between users.The research described in this paper seeks to gain understanding of individual differences in email behaviour. We present results from a questionnaire-based study, which focused on how email users dealt with messages that relate to future tasks or events. We identified two types of user, defined by how they dealt with such messages: the cleaners and the keepers. The difference between these two groups can be attributed to differences in email experience and requirements for flexibility of closure. The ultimate goal of such research is to be able to predict differences in email use and to inform email user interface design and we discuss possible ways in which this could be done.
In recent years, the Australian university sector has undergone large-scale organizational change, including restructuring, downsizing and government funding cuts. At the same time, research from across the globe reports an alarming increase in the occupational stress experienced by university staff. We report on the first phase of a longitudinal investigation of occupational stress. A total of 22 focus groups were conducted with a representative sample of 178 academic and general staff from 15 Australian universities. The groups focused on understanding staff's experience of occupational stress, and perceptions of the sources, consequences and moderators of stress. Both general and academic staff reported a dramatic increase in stress during the previous 5 years. As a group, academic staff reported higher levels of stress than general staff. Five major sources of stress were identified including: insufficient funding and resources; work overload; poor management practice; job insecurity; and insufficient recognition and reward. The majority of groups reported that job-related stress was having a deleterious impact on their professional work and personal welfare. Aspects of the work environment (support from co-workers and management, recognition and achievement, high morale, flexible working conditions), and personal coping strategies (stress management techniques, work/non-work balance, tight role boundaries and lowering standards), were reported to help staff cope with stress. The findings provide a timely insight into the experience of stress within universities. Copyright: 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
Sumario: I. A two-level perspective on tchnology -- II. Beyond efficiency -- III. Do you know who you're talking to? -- IV. Electronic group dynamics -- V. Increasing personal connections -- VI. Control an influence -- VII. Designing information procedures -- VIII. New ways of organizing -- IX. Making connections. Bibliografía : P. 189-204
The use of email by employees at the Danwood Group was studied and it was found that the interrupt effect from emails is more than generally believed. Employees allowed themselves to be interrupted almost as frequently as telephone calls and the common reaction to the arrival of an email is to react almost as quickly as they would respond to telephone calls. This means the interrupt effect is comparable with that of a telephone call. The recovery time from an email interruption was found to be significantly less than the published recovery time for telephone calls. It is to be concluded, therefore, that while Email is still less disruptive than the telephone, the way the majority of users handle their incoming email has been shown to give far more interruption than expected. By analysing the data captured the authors have been able to create recommendations for a set of guidelines for email usage within the workplace that will increase employee efficiency by reducing the prominence of interruptions, restricting the use of email-to-all messages, setting-up the email application to display three lines of the email and to check for email less frequently. It is recommended that training should be given to staff on how to use email more effectively to increase employee productivity.
A field experiment was conducted to assess the effects of enhanced personal responsibility and choice on a group of nursing home residents. It was expected that the debilitated condition of many of the aged residing in institutional settings is, at least in part, a result of living in a virtually decision-free environment and consequently is potentially reversible. Residents who were in the experimental group were given a communication emphasizing their responsibility for themselves, whereas the communication given to a second group stressed the staff's responsibility for them. In addition, to bolster the communication, the former group was given the freedom to make choices and the responsibility of caring for a plant rather than having decisions made and the plant taken care of for them by the staff, as was the case for the latter group. Questionnaire ratings and behavioral measures showed a significant improvement for the experimental group over the comparison group on alertness, active participation, and a general sense of well-being.
Three experiments investigated the role of working memory in various aspects of thinking in chess. Experiment 1 examined the immediate memory for briefly presented chess positions from master games in players from a wide range of abilities, following the imposition of various secondary tasks designed to block separate components of working memory. Suppression of the articulatory loop (by preventing subvocal rehearsal) had no effect on measures of recall, whereas blocking the visuospatial sketchpad (by manipulation of a keypad) and blocking the central executive (by random letter generation) had equivalent disruptive effects, in comparison with a control condition. Experiment 2 investigated the effects of similar secondary tasks on the solution (i.e., move selection) of tactical chess positions, and a similar pattern was found, except that blocking the central executive was much more disruptive than in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 compared performance on two types of primary task, one concerned with solving chess positions as in Experiment 2, and the other a sentence-rearrangement task. The secondary tasks in each case were both designed to block the central executive, but one was verbal (vocal generation of random numbers), while the other was spatial in nature (random generation of keypresses). Performance of the spatial secondary task was affected to a greater extent by the chess primary task than by the verbal primary task, whereas there were no differential effects on these secondary tasks by the verbal primary task. In none of the three experiments were there any differential effects between weak and strong players. These results are interpreted in the context of the working-memory model and previous theories of the nature of cognition in chess.
Using an event-related functional MRI design, we explored the relative roles of dorsal and ventral prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions during specific components (Encoding, Delay, Response) of a working memory task under different memory-load conditions. In a group analysis, effects of increased memory load were observed only in dorsal PFC in the encoding period. Activity was lateralized to the right hemisphere in the high but not the low memory-load condition. Individual analyses revealed variability in activation patterns across subjects. Regression analyses indicated that one source of variability was subjects' memory retrieval rate. It was observed that dorsal PFC plays a differentially greater role in information retrieval for slower subjects, possibly because of inefficient retrieval processes or a reduced quality of mnemonic representations. This study supports the idea that dorsal and ventral PFC play different roles in component processes of working memory.
In 4 experiments, participants alternated between different tasks or performed the same task repeatedly. The tasks for 2 of the experiments required responding to geometric objects in terms of alternative classification rules, and the tasks for the other 2 experiments required solving arithmetic problems in terms of alternative numerical operations. Performance was measured as a function of whether the tasks were familiar or unfamiliar, the rules were simple or complex, and visual cues were present or absent about which tasks should be performed. Task alternation yielded switching-time costs that increased with rule complexity but decreased with task cuing. These factor effects were additive, supporting a model of executive control that has goal-shifting and rule-activation stages for task switching. It appears that rule activation takes more time for switching from familiar to unfamiliar tasks than for switching in the opposite direction.
Personal information is scarce in computer-mediated communication. So when information about the sender is attached with his or her e-mail, this could induce a powerful effect toward the receptor. Two experiments were carried out where males and females were solicited by e-mail to respond to a survey on their foods habits. In the first experiment, students were solicited whereas, in the second experiment, people taken at random in various e-mails lists were solicited. The questionnaire was an HTML form attached with the e-mail. The signature of the solicitor was presented as of a high status (a scientist) or of a mid status (an undergraduate student). Results show that, in both experiments, subjects agreed more favorably to the request when the solicitor was of high status. The importance of social information on computer-mediated communication is used to explain such results.
As more people use e-mail at home or on the job, more people have come to experience the pain of e-mail that Denning first wrote about 20 years ago [3]. In this paper, we present data from a field study in our own company to add to the existing body of research about how people use e-mail. We then use these data and prior literature to outline a framework of the five main activities that we believe people use e-mail for. In particular, we focus on two activities that we believe have been under-studied: attending to the flow of messages they arrive, and doing “triage” on a body of new messages. In addition, we outline potential design directions for improving the e-mail experience, with a focus on e-mail clients that group messages and their replies together into threads. We present a prototype of such an interface as well as results from a lab study of the prototype.
The present research addresses certain effects of modern, electronic communication, as opposed to traditional, face-to-face communication. Three hundred seventy-two subjects from three countries were asked to make recommendations for ameliorating another person's deficits in social skills. Tins was done using a questionnaire form, on which subjects also indicated their experience with different kinds of communication modes (e. g., faceto-face). As hypothesized, subjects who were highly immersed daily in electronic communication were more likely to recommend a solution in terms of the other's adopting modern, electronic means of communication. Further, people with more experience in active face-to-face contact, and people who did more traditional reading, were less prone to recommend modern-electronic means.
• Freud developed his system of psychoanalysis while studying the so-called borderline cases of mental diseases, such as hysteria and compulsion neurosis. By discarding the old methods of treatment and strictly applying himself to a study of the patient's life he discovered that the hitherto puzzling symptoms had a definite meaning, and that there was nothing arbitrary in any morbid manifestation. Psychoanalysis always showed that they referred to some definite problem or conflict of the person concerned. It was while tracing back the abnormal to the normal state that Freud found how faint the line of demarcation was between the normal and neurotic person, and that the psychopathologic mechanisms so glaringly observed in the psychoneuroses and psychoses could usually be demonstrated in a lesser degree in normal persons. This led to a study of the faulty actions of everyday life and later to the publication of the current text, a book which passed through four editions in Germany and is considered the author's most popular work. With great ingenuity and penetration the author throws much light on the complex problems of human behaviour, and clearly demonstrates that the hitherto considered impassable gap between normal and abnormal mental states is more apparent than real. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
• Freud developed his system of psychoanalysis while studying the so-called borderline cases of mental diseases, such as hysteria and compulsion neurosis. By discarding the old methods of treatment and strictly applying himself to a study of the patient's life he discovered that the hitherto puzzling symptoms had a definite meaning, and that there was nothing arbitrary in any morbid manifestation. Psychoanalysis always showed that they referred to some definite problem or conflict of the person concerned. It was while tracing back the abnormal to the normal state that Freud found how faint the line of demarcation was between the normal and neurotic person, and that the psychopathologic mechanisms so glaringly observed in the psychoneuroses and psychoses could usually be demonstrated in a lesser degree in normal persons. This led to a study of the faulty actions of everyday life and later to the publication of the current text, a book which passed through four editions in Germany and is considered the author's most popular work. With great ingenuity and penetration the author throws much light on the complex problems of human behaviour, and clearly demonstrates that the hitherto considered impassable gap between normal and abnormal mental states is more apparent than real. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper reviews the literature on email (including computer conferencing) and discusses the most important current issues in the field. Though it will be of interest to researchers working specifically in the email field, it is intended mainly as a summary for IS researchers in other areas. Email research is part of a wider field, computer-mediated communication (CMC), which includes some areas not covered here, such as the Internet, video conferencing and EDI. Most research on email has concerned itself with the issues of media choice and media effects. Despite a great deal of published work though, the field still has an unsatisfactory, piecemeal feel to it. Much of the work that has been published is unsatisfactory in being based upon unrealistic, laboratory-like simulations, and a positivist epistemology. Most of the work concerns the use of email and the effects of using email on individuals and groups; little has been done on the effects at an organizational level. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future avenues of research.
A guide is provided to the proceedings of the Hawthorne experiments, and experimental data are now made readily available. Data from the main experiment (that in the first relay assembly test room at Western Electric) are interpreted statistically for the first time. Quantitative analysis of this quasi experiment is accomplished by time-series multiple regression using nearly five years of data. This analysis demonstrates that experimental variables account for some 90% of the variance in quantity and quality of output, both for the group and for individual workers. Imposition of managerial discipline, economic adversity, and quality of raw materials provide most explanation, obviating the need to draw upon less clearly definable human relations mechanisms. For decades the Hawthorne studies have provided a rationale for humane approaches in the organization of work by suggesting that considerate or participative treatment of workers led to better economic performance. The present analysis suggests, to the contrary, that humanitarian procedures must provide their own justification.
The thirtieth anniversary of the first e-mail was celebrated recently, but no one knows the exact date or what the original message was. This lack of certainty is typical of research on e-mail – there is now a substantial body of knowledge, but little attempt has been made to co-ordinate it. This article looks at the origins and features of e-mail and brings together findings on such issues as information overload, aggression and unsolicited commercial e-mail (“spam”). Information storage and retrieval issues are covered, as are the results of user-impact studies. The article identifies scope for further research on human-computer interaction.
The sometimes observed negative social effects of electronic communication technology are often attributed to the characteristics of the technology itself. Electronic mail, for instance, filters out personal and social cues and provides new capabilities not found in traditional media, and it has been argued that these factors have consequences such as “flaming” and depersonalization. Alternative theoretical perspectives on the impacts of information technology suggest that our ability to explain these outcomes might be enhanced by attending to users' intentional choices about how to use technology and to unpredictable technology usage patterns that emerge when users interact with the technology and each other. These alternative perspectives are examined in the context of an exploratory case study of a complex organization in which electronic mail was heavily used.
Users were found to select email deliberately when they wished to avoid unwanted social interactions. At the same time, they actively took steps to avoid negative outcomes, such as depersonalization of their relationships with subordinates. However, despite their well-intentioned efforts, some negative social effects did occur that cannot entirely be attributed to the technological characteristics of electronic communication. Instead, they appear to be ironic side effects of users' thoughtful efforts to use email effectively. These results suggest the value of according a prominent role in explanations of technology impacts to users' intended and unintended technology uses. The results also imply that negative social effects from using electronic communication technology may not prove easy to eradicate, despite technological developments such as multimedia integration, and despite efforts to train users in the best email “etiquette.”
Investigated the effects of computer-mediated communication on private and public self-awareness within a persuasive communications paradigm. 64 undergraduates were presented with either (1) an extremely counter-attitudinal communication from a positively valued source or (2) a moderately counter-attitudinal communication from a negatively valued source. Half of the Ss received the communication via computer, half via a handwritten version in face-to-face activities. Findings indicate that computer-mediated communication involved greater private self-awareness than face-to-face communication. Computer-mediated communication had no impact on public self-awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This volume summarizes the results of a research project in industrial relations in which the Industrial Research Department of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration cooperated with the Western Electric Company. 12 years of research bring the authors to a critical evaluation of the traditional view that workers, supervisors, or executives be considered apart from their social setting and treated as essentially "economic men." For example, "it became clear that the beneficial effects of rest pauses could be explained equally well in terms of the social function." The work involved was not heavy manual labor. Again, "the efficiency of a wage incentive is so dependent on its relation to other factors that it is impossible to separate it out as a thing in itself having an independent effect." The book, 26 chapters in length, is divided into 5 parts. There is a foreword by C. G. Stoll of Western Electric and a preface by Elton Mayo. 34 tables and 48 figures assist the reader in visualizing details. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Interruptions are a common aspect of the work environment of most organizations. Yet little is known about how intemptions and their characteristics, such as frequency of occurrence, influence decision-making performance of individuals. Consequently, this paper reports the results of two experiments investigating the influence of interruptions on individual decision making. Interruptions were found to improve decision-making performance on simple tasks and to lower performance on complex tasks. For complex tasks, the frequency of interruptions and the dissimilarity of content between the pri-mary and interruption tasks was found to exacerbate this effect. The implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed.
It is generally assumed that because it is not necessary to react to email messages when they arrive, employees will read their messages in their own time with minimum interruption to their work. This research has shown that email messages do have some disruptive effect by interrupting the user. Employees at the Danwood Group in the UK were monitored to see how they used email. It was found that most employees had their email software check for incoming messages every 5 min and responded to the arrival of a message within 6 s. A recovery time between finishing reading the email and returning to normal work also existed though it was shorter than published recovery times for a telephone interrupt.This analysis has suggested that a number of methods can be employed to reduce this interrupt effect. Employee training, changing the settings and modes of using the email software and the introduction of a one line email facility are all shown to have beneficial effects. This has led to a series of recommendations that will enable the Danwood Group to make better use of email communication and increase employee effectiveness.
It has been proposed that email clients could be improved if they presented messages grouped into conversations. An email conversation is the tree of related messages that arises from the use of the reply operation. We propose two models of conversation. The first model characterizes a conversation as a chronological sequence of messages; the second as a tree based on the reply relationship. We show how existing email clients and prior research projects implicitly support each model to a greater or lesser degree depending on their design, but none fully supports both models simultaneously. We present a mixed-model visualization that simultaneously presents sequence and reply relationships among the messages of a conversation, making both visible at a glance. We describe the integration of the visualization into a working prototype email client. A usability study indicates that the system meets our usability goals and verifies that the visualization fully conveys both types of relationships within the messages of an email conversation.
This paper describes a series of interviews that focus on the ways that professional office workers use electronic mail to manage their daily work. A number of implications for the design of flexible mail systems are discussed.
Two principal claims are made. First, electronic mail is more than just a communication system. In addition to supporting information management, it provides a mechanism for supporting a variety of time management and task management activities. Some people are prioritizers, concentrating on the problem of managing incoming messages. Others are archivers, concentrating on how to archive information for subsequent use. Similarly, some people use mail to delegate tasks, while others perform tasks delegated to them by others electronically.
The second claim is that use of electronic mail is strikingly diverse, although not infinitely so. Individuals vary in their preferences, both in their general willingness to manage their work electronically and in their specific preferences along the dimensions described above. This diversity implies that one's own experiences with electronic mail are unlikely to provide sufficient understanding of other's uses of mail. Mail designers should thus seek flexible primitives that capture the important dimensions and provide flexibility for a wide range of users.
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 develops a three-fold typology of orientations to email: ‘relaxed’, ‘driven’ and ‘stressed’. It further investigates whether the personality traits of self-esteem and locus of control are associated with email-related stress. It finds that low self-esteem is associated with the ‘driven’ orientation. It further suggests that the ‘stressed’ orientation may be related to how distractive email is perceived to be, compared with other forms of communication.
Reduced-cues theories of communication assume that the sensorial stimulation of face-to-face interaction is essential for an optimal communicative experience. From a motivational perspective, Wicklund and Vandekerckhove (2000) took this theory further by hypothesizing that people involved in rapid communication in a setting poor in sensorial stimulation would tend to have (a) brief and (b) egocentric exchanges. Two experiments were developed in order to test these points. In Experiment 1, participants had to simulate communication with a long-lost friend either via a computer-typed letter (slow and without sensorial output media) or an email (fast and without sensorial output media). Results showed that email participants wrote shorter messages and were less likely to bring up friendship-related memories than letter participants. The second quasi-experimental study succeeded in extending the external validity of Experiment 1's findings. Research limits as well as scope for future research are discussed in the conclusions.
This study provides an account of how richness occurs in communication that uses electronic mail. In examining actual e-mail exchanged among managers in a corporation, the study interprets the managerial use of the communication medium of electronic mail as the users themselves understand and experience it. Employing the research approach of interpretivism in general and hermeneutics in particular, the study finds that richness or leanness is not an inherent property of the electronic-mail medium, but an emergent property of the interaction of the electronic-mail medium with its organizational context, where the interaction is described in terms of distanciation, autonomization, social construction, appropriation, and enactment.Conclusions and recommendations are that managers who receive e-mail are not passive recipients of data, but active producers of meaning; that the best or just an appropriate communication medium is not determined through an individual manager's exercise of rational decision making, but emerges as best or appropriate over time, over the course of the medium's interactions with many users; that systems professionals need to treat the managerial user of an e-mail system not merely as a client of information services, but also as a processor or co-processor to be integrated into the system design; and that information systems researchers need to dedicate attention to the actual processes by which the users of communication medium come to understand themselves, their own use of the medium, and their organizational context.
Psychologists once thought, simplistically, that genius was nothing more than high general intelligence, the capacitymeasured by the intelligence quotient or IQ. IQ scores of 140 and above, attained by perhaps four in everythousand youngsters, were classified as in the ´genius range.' Stanford University's Lewis Terman, who wasresponsible for revising and standardizing the first individually-administered IQ test, the Stanford-Binet, identifiedsome 1500 gifted children with IQs in this range and Terman's gifted group have now been followed throughmiddle age. Most of them have led relatively successful lives but none of them, so far as I am aware, would beclassified as geniuses today.
The Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, inspiring supporters and critics alike to produce a delightful potpourri of argumentation, good and bad. The author will weave some of this argumentation into his general observations about the CDA. He wants to encourage fellow technologists to raise the quality and level of this important, ongoing discussion. The two positions seem to define the spectrum in the CDA debate are: indecency on the Internet is a case of what Mike Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls a "Cyburban Myth"-there is no problem and indecency on the Internet flourishes and puts the children at risk of being exposed to and harmed by pornography. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 is legislation that prohibits use of telecommunication devices for the transmissions of any obscene or indecent message, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age.
In this article the author, summarizes some interesting aspects of electronic mail, particularly in relation to phenomenon of information overload and some thorny privacy issues. Some of the technical advantages of email over communication alternatives are given in the article. Email can be as fast as needed, it disposes of transmission delays imposed by geographical distance. Sender and receiver can interact with their message autonomously and without distracting cross-talk. Email enables users to schedule interrupts, it is paperless and archivable by default. Along with so many advantages email has a darker side. The convenience of email encourages abuse at the interpersonal level. Email extensions encourage irresponsible mass-mailings. Email may lead to communication slavery. The dangers of email do not end with information overload. The problem is with the transmitted binary, executable files and represents a fairly significant security hole and a potential source for new wave of computer viruses.
This study focuses on people's choices between electronic mail and
voice mail. We found that users generally preferred electronic mail over
voice mail for most communication purposes. These results do not support
a hypothesis derived from media richness theory that voice mail would be
preferred to e-mail for ambiguous situations. A more important finding
is that other medium features besides richness influence individuals'
media choices, specifically, medium features useful for retrieving and
preparing messages and for working In group settings. From this and
other evidence, we conclude that a complex set of social factors governs
organizational media use in ways that neither theory can fully explain.
Our findings have some interesting implications for designers of
multimedia communication systems and for people like human resources
specialists who are concerned with improving the effectiveness of
professional work and the quality of working life
The genetics of genius Genius and the mind: Studies of creativity and temperament
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Lykken, D. T. (1998). The genetics of genius. In A. Steptoe (Ed.), Genius and the mind: Studies of creativity and temperament (pp. 15–37). Cambridge, England: Oxford University Press.
The psychopathology of everyday life Standard Edition, 6. (Original work published 1901) Occupational stress in universities: Staff perceptions of the causes, consequences and moderators of stress
- S Freud
- N A Gillespie
- M Walsh
- A H Winefields
- J Dua
- C Stough
Freud, S. (1960). The psychopathology of everyday life. Standard Edition, 6. (Original work published 1901) Gillespie, N. A., Walsh, M., Winefields, A. H., Dua, J., & Stough, C. (2001). Occupational stress in universities: Staff perceptions of the causes, consequences and moderators of stress. Work & Stress, 15(1), 53–72.
E-mail as a speed-facilitating device: A contribution to the reduced-cues perspective on communication Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and intervention The conundrum of the glass ceiling The Economist Understanding email use: Pre-dicting action on a message
- M Bertacco
- A Deponte
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Bertacco, M., & Deponte, A. (2005). E-mail as a speed-facilitating device: A contribution to the reduced-cues perspective on communication. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communi-cation, 10. Retrieved September, 2006 from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/ bertacco.html Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and intervention. New York: Harper and Collins. The conundrum of the glass ceiling. (2005, July 21). The Economist. Retrieved September, 2006 from http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4197626 Dabbish, L. A., Kraut, R. E., Fussell, S., & Kiesler, S. (2005). Understanding email use: Pre-dicting action on a message. Proceedings of ACM CHI 2005 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 691–700). New York: ACM Press.
Email addiction survey
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America Online. (2005). Email addiction survey 2005. Retrieved September 2006 from http:// media.aoltimewarner.com/media/cb_press_view.cfm?release_num=55254382