Intelligent Interactive Technology
Adaptive and Interactive Mobile Systems (Chief's Special Project)
E-mail Overload:
The following is just a brief list of Internet sites discussing the problem of e-mail overload (it shows, however, how important the problem is):
E-mail overload drives many users bananas:
... Try to imagine your e-mail in-box accumulating 300 to 600 messages - not while you are away on vacation, but every day. This nightmare scenario is already a reality for beleaguered power users, experts say, and could become the norm for many more end users as person-to-person e-mail, subscriber lists and spam continue to proliferate. ... Recipients who get 100 to 200 messages per day are already common and no one believes overall e-mail usage is near peaking.
E-mail Overload in Congress (Managing a Communications Crisis):
... The explosion in electronic communications is dramatically changing the way Americans interact with one another, with businesses, and with government. While virtually all institutions are struggling to adapt to the demands of a "paperless environment," the challenges facing Congress are among the most difficult and contentious. Growing numbers of citizens are frustrated by what they perceive to be Congress' lack of responsiveness to e-mail. At the same time, Congress is frustrated by what it perceives to be e-citizens' lack of understanding of how Congress works and the constraints under which it must operate. ... The number of e-mail messages reaching the House of Representatives, for example, rose from 20 million in 1998 to 48 million in 2000, and it continues to grow by an average of one million messages per month.
... The typical user receives about 45 e-mails every day, although some receive upwards of 150 to 200 e-mails daily. The typical user, therefore, spends a significant amount of time each day simply filtering and processing e-mail, much of which is not relevant to his or her job. The problem is compounded for mobile users who are often faced with downloading e-mail over slow dial-up lines and then having to pick through the relevant content.
Managing the E-Mail Explosion:
... By 2002, we'll spend more than four hours each day reading and answering an average of 50 work-related messages, according to a Ferris Research report on managing e-mail overload. Even now, we commonly deal with 30 business messages daily, up 50 percent from a year ago. Just ignoring the mail is not an answer. As anyone who has failed to respond to an important note knows, it's sometimes more time-consuming to ignore an e-mail than to answer it. So, one way or another, we're going to have to deal with that electronic mail mountain.
To toplast updated
July 11, 2005 05:35 PM
Mikhail.Prokopenko@csiro.au