E-mail is ruining my life!
Written: 7th March, 2008
Two million e-mails are sent every second in the UK. That is almost three billion each day. But what is the real cost of this information overload?
We can spend up to half our working day going through our inbox, leaving us tired, frustrated and unproductive.
A recent study found one-third of office workers suffer from e-mail stress.
And it is expensive, too. One FTSE firm estimated that dealing with pointless e-mails cost it £39m a year.
Now firms are being forced to help staff deal with the daily avalanche in their inboxes. Some hire e-mail consultants, while others are experimenting with e-mail free days.
Ray Tomlinson is not a household name, but perhaps he should be. Ray was responsible for the e-mail revolution.
In 1971, he developed the code that enabled him to send an e-mail between two computers for the first time.
He says: "I do feel proud of this accomplishment. In some sense it was such a simple thing to do at the time, but it has had ramifications through many people's lives. What I didn't anticipate is how fast it would grow once it started growing."
Source BBC news