British workers are suffering “e-mail stress” because they are swamped with messages and constantly monitoring their inbox. Staff are left tired, frustrated and unproductive as they struggle to cope with a constant deluge of e-mails, researchers from Glasgow and Paisley universities have found.

More than a third said they thought they checked their inbox every 15 minutes and 64 per cent said they looked more than once an hour. When researchers fitted monitors to their computers, workers were found to be viewing e-mails up to 40 times an hour. About 33 per cent said they felt stressed by the volume of e-mails and the need to reply quickly. A further 28 per cent said they felt “driven” when they checked messages because of the pressure to respond. Just 38 per cent of workers were relaxed enough to wait a day or longer before replying.

Researchers found that many workers felt “invaded” by e-mails interrupting them as they tried to concentrate on their work. They felt pressured to switch applications to see whether the e-mails were urgent.

Female workers felt under greater pressure to respond than men. Karen Renaud, a computer scientist at Glasgow University, and Judith Ramsay, a psychologist at Paisley University, surveyed almost 200 workers. They concluded: “E-mail has become an indispensable tool in business. However, there is evidence that e-mail can exert a powerful hold over its users and that many computer users experience stress as a result of e-mail-related pressure.”

Ms Renaud said: “E-mail is the thing that now causes us the most problems in our working lives. It’s an amazing tool but it’s got out of hand.”

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