News archive
Article Source: https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/email-mental-health-impact/
Accessed from the world wide web at 13:00 hrs 02.09.21.
Email is stressful. That could be a baffling statement to some, but millions of people experience the scourge of email first-hand. This article will teach you everything you need to know about email and mental health.
The needy client that demands round-the-clock attention. The boss who’s still organizing reports at 11 pm. The “one-up” company culture that expects employees to “go the extra mile” when out of the office. People are more connected than ever before. When these situations inevitably spill over into your email inbox, they begin to affect your everyday life.
Bad emailing habits are not just “inconvenient,” they can be fundamentally damaging for staff members’ mental health and productivity. This guide will show you how email can negatively affect mental health, along with steps employees and managers can take to reduce email-related stress.
How Did Email Become So Stressful?
Email wasn’t always the omnipresent stress-inducing force we know it as today.
It originally started as a way for academics to share resources. Now, it’s universal and inescapable. How did that happen?
| The History of Email | ||
| 1965 | The First E-Message | The first electronic message is sent on-campus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1965.
MIT’s Compatible Time-Sharing System allowed users to share resources and messages on a central disk, with users logging in from separate, independent terminals. |
| 1971 | The First “@” Sign Is Used | A famous American programmer called Ray Tomlinson conceives the primary method of sending emails online between computers.
The “@” symbol is used to send messages to specific recipients. Previously, people could only send messages to others using the same computer. |
| 1973 | Email as We Know It | DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) proposes the standard structure of an email as part of “the Internetting project.”
This includes “To” and “From” fields and the “FWD” feature. |
| 1979 | The EMAIL Program | In 1978, Eric Schmidt designs an Intranet messaging service called BerkleyNet.
Shiva Ayyadurai, aged 14, writes a program called EMAIL one year later. The program allowed users at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to send electronic messages to one another. Shiva copyrighted the term in 1982. |
| 1990 | The Start of Spam | This is where things start to get stressful. Spam mail began peppering the inboxes of email users the world over.
Spam was first used as a business/marketing ploy in 1994. |
| 1992 | Attachments Fill Inbox Space | The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (Mime) Protocol brings the capability of attaching files to emails.
Limited inbox space means users must often frantically delete emails to accommodate attachments. |
| 1993 | Overloaded Email | AOL and Delphi connect their mail systems. This is the beginning of overcrowded (and stressful) inboxes. |
| 1997 | 10 Million Free Email Accounts | Following the release of free web-based mail services like Hotmail and Yahoo mail, email grabs the world’s attention.
Roughly 10 million people around the world had a free webmail account in 1997. |
| 1998 | You’ve (All) Got Mail | AOL’s “You’ve got mail” notification is thrust into the public eye when Tom Hanks stars in a film of the same name. |
| 1998 | “Spam” Added to the Dictionary | Spam mail is a widespread issue in the late 1990s, so much so that Oxford adds the term to its dictionary.
Marketers had discovered the relatively “free” prospecting approach of spam mail. Consequently, spam mail flooded people’s inboxes. |
| 2001 | Widespread Office Use | Email turns 30. Almost every business in a developed economy is now using email. |
| 2002 | EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications | The EU passes a law that makes it illegal to send unsolicited direct marketing communications without the receiver’s prior consent.
The EU’s law is designed to limit spam. The United States would pass a similar law 2 years later. |
| 2003 | Email in Your Back Pocket | The Blackberry phone launches in 2003, placing email in the pocket of business people across the world.
“Always-on” culture is born. With instant access to email, professionals are expected to check inboxes even in off-hours. |
| 2004 | Gmail Launches | The most popular email service, Gmail, is released as a beta for public use. |
| 2005 | Sender Policy Framework (SPF) | SPF launches as a counter to spam mail, designed to authenticate incoming emails and detect forged sender addresses. |
| 2007 | Mobile Email for Everyone | Steve Jobs unveils the first iPhone. This makes email accessible to the masses, any time, any place. |
| 2017 | French Labor Law | The French Government passes a labor reform that gives employees the “right to disconnect.”
All organizations with 50 or more employees must define a policy for email use during after-work hours. The aim is to reduce the number of employees using email after work and over the weekend. |
| 2017 | Italy Regulates ICT | Italy regulates ICT use, approving similar laws to France. |
| 2018 | Spain’s Right to Disconnect | Spain gives citizens the “right to disconnect,” just like France. |
| 2021 | Pressure for Reform | The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic puts remote working and “always-on” culture in the spotlight.
Slovakia passes a “right to disconnect” law. Ireland passes laws to monitor/mentor for better email practices. Canada and the Netherlands consider “right to disconnect” laws. Meanwhile, pressure mounts on governments that haven’t yet passed similar laws. Namely, the EU and the UK. |
| Email More Popular Than Ever | There are over 4 billion email users in 2021, collectively sending 306 billion emails a year.
Email is more popular than any other form of online communication. If there’s ever a time to learn how to use it properly, it’s today. |
|
How Is Email Affecting Your Mental Health?
There are a few different ways email might be affecting your mental health. The pressure to stay connected to work at all hours of the day is the most common email-related stressor.
Always-on Culture Is Bad For You
It might come as a surprise to some that email could be considered damaging for your mental health. After all, it’s part and parcel of your average day at work. Not only are employees expected to check email, they’re required to do so.
But perhaps that is exactly the problem. According to one study, the average employee spends 28% of their working day on email.
Email is a wonderfully helpful communication tool. So much so that it’s become integral to the business world. Unfortunately, however, it’s become so important that employees often feel pressured to check email out of work hours. This is called “always-on” culture, and it’s painfully common.
Almost half of U.S. workers are guilty of pandering to pressures to “stay connected.” This is extremely damaging, to say the least. One study by Future Work Centers concluded that consistent pressure to check emails is one of the biggest stressors for your average employee.
Constantly checking email after hours is stressful because it means you can never take your mind off work. Your favorite movie or the valuable time you promised to spend with your partner is rudely cut short when the boss bombards your inbox at 8pm, expecting a response.
This leads us to our next point: “always-on” doesn’t just add stress to your own free time. It affects your loved ones too.
Virginia Tech’s study found that the above effects were true no matter the amount of time spent on email. The mere expectation is enough to place pressure on your life and relationship.
People who constantly check email are not present. Too much time, mental capacity, and emotional energy are spent focusing on work rather than other areas of life.
There are knock-on effects of email-related stress, too.
The expenditure and pressure it takes to stay on top of your inbox often lead to anxiety: “I need to check in with X, or else Y will happen.”
Work-related stress and anxiety are not sustainable. These bring about negative thought patterns, poor sleep quality, and even depression — which is why checking email outside of work is often counterproductive.
The emotional exhaustion and stress provoked by being “always-on” eventually causes “burnout” in employees. More than 15 million working days are lost from stress in the United Kingdom every year, and these effects are commonplace.
What Else is Damaging About Online Communications?
The pressure to stay connected is just one (albeit important) reason email can damage your mental health.
Funnily enough, email can be a source of stress even when you don’t check it after hours. Email clutter can be a significant problem for employees, disrupting their headspace and stealing productivity while they work. We’ll call this the email clutter-anxiety loop.
“How can email clutter create stress and anxiety?” I hear you ask. Well, in a couple of ways. The solution is not always as simple as ignoring your inbox.
We need to reference something called the Zeigarnik effect to explain why email clutter can be a stressor.
Psychologist Bluma Zeignarik conducted experiments on 138 children. She wanted to test her professor’s (Kurt Lewin’s) theory: people forget the tasks they complete and remember ongoing tasks.
Zeignarik gave each subject a puzzle to complete. She interrupted half of the group during the task and allowed the other half to finish the puzzle. Astonishingly, just 12% of the subjects who completed the task could remember it in detail. Conversely, 80% of interrupted subjects remembered what they were doing in detail.
So uncompleted tasks stay in our minds much longer than completed tasks. This research is now backed up by popular psychological theory: we retain important information and let go of the rest.
So, how does this relate to email? People see emails as mini-tasks — checking them, reading them, answering them — so sending and receiving emails makes you feel like you’re getting stuff done.
On every work email, there could be another task too; a question to answer or a change to make to a document.
That’s why email can be on your mind 24/7. You can’t escape it. As your inbox begins to pile up, you can’t stop thinking about all of those incomplete tasks. Those emails need answering, and those documents need amending!
“Better check my email after work to make sure there are no more tasks I need to complete.” Wrong. Now you’re always on, too!
Clutter constantly reminds you of incomplete tasks. Your mind wanders throughout the day. You’re not present. You lose focus and productivity, so you can’t answer as many emails and complete as many tasks, which creates more anxiety and stress. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Completing tasks boosts your confidence. Failing to complete tasks lowers your self-esteem. Once you’re stuck in an email-fueled anxiety loop as outlined above, there’s only one destination: burnout!
Rude Emails
There’s one more primary email-related stressor. Rude emails have become more common since employees moved out of the office and into the home. How else is your boss meant to shout at you, anyway? Queue the all-caps…
“YOU MESSED UP YOU STUPID IDIOT WE WILL BE HAVING WORDS.”
Or something along those lines, you get the picture. This is an example of “active rudeness,” as identified in a University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) study. According to employees, active rudeness is emotionally charged. It’s pretty obvious how this type of communication could cause mental health issues. Study participants got worked up because of the offensive nature of this type of message, perceiving active rudeness as mistreatment from the sender.
There’s another, more subtle, type of rude email. The above study classifies these messages as a form of “passive rudeness.”
“Friendly reminder: it would be great if you could get all of your reports done today.”
I’ll give you a clue. The above message is not a “friendly reminder” at all. It’s a passive-aggressive command!
Of course, online communications are not perfect. We cannot attach the tone of our voice to our emails. Many emails you have sent/received could be perceived as passive-aggressive but were intended as perfectly normal, polite messages.
That being said, if you’re receiving these consistently from a colleague or boss, then it’s probably passive rudeness. Context matters too. For example, do they send you sarcastic emails whenever you miss a deadline?
Passive rudeness can also describe situations where you are intentionally ignored. Employees monitored in UIC’s study reported confusion, ambiguity, and uncertainty from passive rudeness. “Is something wrong?” “Did they forget to reply, or are they angry with me?” Questions like these are not conducive to a healthy and productive mind.
Emails are stored securely and always accessible. UIC researchers found that subjects consistently returned to the site of the crime (the rude emails) to check for a response to their reply. This only makes the above effects more damaging.
Email Related Stress is Getting Worse
The effects of email-related stress/anxiety are becoming an increasingly prevalent issue.
We touched on this above, but rude emails are not the only stressor that’s intensifying. Working from home (WFH) has increased our reliance on email and other online communications. As such, it has also increased our email-related stress levels.
One study found that 44.4% of employees working from home have experienced a decline in their mental health. Employees who recently started working from home were 30% more likely to report a drop in mental health compared to those still in an office setting.
Checking email is a big stressor for remote workers. For a start, employees must read and send more emails from home, making the workday longer. According to a study of 3.1 million workers throughout North America, Europe, and the Middle East, “significant and durable increases” in internally sent emails have increased the average workday by 48.5 minutes since the pandemic began.
Another study from the University of California suggests this is especially problematic.
Researchers monitored 40 office employees’ heart variability for 12 days. Heart variability is a well-known indicator of mental stress. Computer and email usage was measured alongside heart variability, which allowed researchers to determine the mental effects of email use.
The report came to a definitive conclusion: “The longer one spends on email in [a given] hour, the higher is one’s stress for that hour.”
While email stress has only worsened in recent times, expect this to continue into the future. There will be 4.6 billion email users in 2025.
As companies increasingly rely on the internet, flexible working, and a growing remote/freelance workforce, email stress will only continue to rise. The huge upturn in online collaboration/communication tools is evidence of this trend.
Slack and Whatsapp are increasingly utilized to encourage faster response rates that place additional pressure on employees. Arguably, as our reliance on technology increases, so will the stress and strain of email.
Why Are We So Obsessed With Checking Emails?
Before we give you some advice on mitigating email-related stress, there’s one question to answer. Why are people “always-on” in the first place?
It’s a question that many social commentators have attempted to explain. The Zeigarnik effect is one such explanation: we are constantly thinking about incomplete tasks, so we feel the need to check up on them to complete them.
More generally, the need to be “always-on” starts at the very top of the chain of command.
Businesses can create a culture of work-’til-you-drop, especially in fast-paced industries where tasks are ongoing, and inboxes are constantly filling up. Companies might encourage, even require, employees to check their inboxes outside of regular business hours.
Companies may even gauge this as a sign of your commitment to the cause. Not thinking about email constantly? You must not want to succeed in your job!
For competitive personality types, this kind of “expectation” becomes a challenge. A chance to one-up colleagues while pleasing the manager/boss. For others, email pressure is sucking away their productivity.
So why would these people still check their email out of hours? Even without pressure from the boss, we’re all guilty of checking email, at least sometimes.
People might check email 24/7 to distract themselves from other tasks or issues in their life. They may also check email because it’s a habit, or because they don’t fully understand its damaging effects.
There could be another psychological factor at play. Our instinct to connect, network, and realize connections and opportunities, coupled with our anxiety when we ignore interactions and connections.
This dynamic is explained by the famous psychologist Matthew Lieberman in his book: “Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect.”
Lieberman explains that our experience of social groups/networks is directly linked to our pain systems. This is why you feel heartbreak when a relationship ends or loneliness when you haven’t socialized in a while.
Like getting rejected by your love interest, we feel emotional distress when our connection to others is ceased. People who neglect their inbox can subconsciously feel like they’re neglecting social connection, which creates anxiety and stress.
A cluttered inbox only adds to those stress levels. No! More emails are piling up! And more missed connections! Once you crumble and check your inbox at all times of the day, you’re “always-on,” which brings with it another set of potential health issues.
How Can You Reduce Stress/Anxiety from Email?
So, we know how email can cause mental health issues. Thankfully, there are also steps we can take to reduce the stress, anxiety, and a host of other consequent health issues related to email.
Change Habits to Mitigate Stress
Set boundaries and healthy habits around your use of email that mitigate email-related stress.
1. Learn to Switch Off
This point comes first because it is, perhaps, the most important of all. Whether you’re worried about the constant clutter in your inbox or you’re checking email at midnight, learning how to switch off will help you massively.
Unplug after work. Literally. Turn off your devices for a while and do something else. This will teach you not to look at email in your free time.
Set strict rules for yourself. If you’re really struggling to switch off, then a no-holds-barred approach is needed. Be ruthless in the way you govern your email habits. For example, you finish work at 5pm which means you finish working at 5pm. An email at 5:05 pm doesn’t receive a response till the next working day. This will also help you shirk any perceived expectations and avoid those late-night emails.
If you’re worried about missing an emergency, don’t. Your boss will call you if there’s a genuine issue. Keep a backup phone for emergency-only calls in case this materializes.
2. Pick Up a Non-Digital Hobby
This is another great way to switch off. You might already love watching movies or playing video games in your free time, but these pass-times place you too close to your email inbox. Consider picking up a hobby that takes you away from your devices altogether.
Learn to play an instrument, go for long walks in the countryside with your friends, or get into rock climbing. Any hobby that facilitates creative thinking, social interaction, or exercise.
Hobbies like these not only mitigate stress because you’re disconnected from work, they actively reduce anxiety and stress by taking your focus somewhere else or working your body physically. Both are scientifically proven to improve mental health.
3. Use a Vacation Auto-Responder
You should be thinking of nothing else but sweet, sweet relaxation while you’re on holiday. Unless you are eternally blessed, your email inbox is not relaxing. So switch off from it and implement systems that allow you not to worry about all those accumulating emails.
I understand some holidaymakers will find avoiding their inbox more stressful than actually checking it. If that’s you, that’s totally fine. Just make sure you only check your inbox once a day at a consistent pre-scheduled time (first thing in the morning is usually best).
For everyone else, use an auto-responder. Auto-responders are great. As the name suggests, they automatically respond to the sender’s email, telling them you are away.
Your auto-responder email should include the period through which you will be out of the office. It should point urgent inquiries in the direction of a colleague or alternative contact. Reassure senders that you will respond to any remaining inquiries when you return.
An auto-responder is going to reduce the anxiety of not checking your inbox. You can be safe in the knowledge that any urgent issues will be flagged up with someone else. You won’t feel inclined to check your email, or even think about it, which means you can switch off and enjoy your vacation.
4. Use Technology to Time Block Your Day
You can set your boundaries in stone with the help of technology. Specifically, utilizing calendar invites and reminders can segment your time into blocks and remind you to value everything (not just email).
Time blocking improves your productivity by organizing your tasks for what they’re worth. Time blocking can also reduce email stress because it restricts your email habits to 1 or 2 short, pre-defined periods per day.
You can even block your personal time. For example, “Family time 6pm-9pm” reminds you to value home life as much as your job (if not more!). Time blocking your personal time forces you to commit to that schedule rather than breaking off mid-dinner to reply to your boss.
Google Calendar is one of the best calendar platforms. It can send you reminders for specific events (time blocks), and you can invite other people so they can see your schedule. You can edit privacy settings, too, so others only see that you’re “busy” in certain time slots.
3. Use a Vacation Auto-Responder
You should be thinking of nothing else but sweet, sweet relaxation while you’re on holiday. Unless you are eternally blessed, your email inbox is not relaxing. So switch off from it and implement systems that allow you not to worry about all those accumulating emails.
I understand some holidaymakers will find avoiding their inbox more stressful than actually checking it. If that’s you, that’s totally fine. Just make sure you only check your inbox once a day at a consistent pre-scheduled time (first thing in the morning is usually best).
For everyone else, use an auto-responder. Auto-responders are great. As the name suggests, they automatically respond to the sender’s email, telling them you are away.
Your auto-responder email should include the period through which you will be out of the office. It should point urgent inquiries in the direction of a colleague or alternative contact. Reassure senders that you will respond to any remaining inquiries when you return.
An auto-responder is going to reduce the anxiety of not checking your inbox. You can be safe in the knowledge that any urgent issues will be flagged up with someone else. You won’t feel inclined to check your email, or even think about it, which means you can switch off and enjoy your vacation.
4. Use Technology to Time Block Your Day
You can set your boundaries in stone with the help of technology. Specifically, utilizing calendar invites and reminders can segment your time into blocks and remind you to value everything (not just email).
Time blocking improves your productivity by organizing your tasks for what they’re worth. Time blocking can also reduce email stress because it restricts your email habits to 1 or 2 short, pre-defined periods per day.
You can even block your personal time. For example, “Family time 6pm-9pm” reminds you to value home life as much as your job (if not more!). Time blocking your personal time forces you to commit to that schedule rather than breaking off mid-dinner to reply to your boss.
Google Calendar is one of the best calendar platforms. It can send you reminders for specific events (time blocks), and you can invite other people so they can see your schedule. You can edit privacy settings, too, so others only see that you’re “busy” in certain time slots.