E-mail as a Source and Symbol of Stress

Stephen R. Barley (), Debra E. Meyerson () and Stine Grodal ()
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Stephen R. Barley: Department of Management Science and Engineering, School of Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
Debra E. Meyerson: School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
Stine Grodal: Department of Strategy and Innovation, School of Management, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215

Organization Science, 2011, vol. 22, issue 4, 887-906

Abstract: The increasing volume of e-mail and other technologically enabled communications are widely regarded as a growing source of stress in people's lives. Yet research also suggests that new media afford people additional flexibility and control by enabling them to communicate from anywhere at any time. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, this paper builds theory that unravels this apparent contradiction. As the literature would predict, we found that the more time people spent handling e-mail, the greater was their sense of being overloaded, and the more e-mail they processed, the greater their perceived ability to cope. Contrary to assumptions of prior studies, we found no evidence that time spent working mediates e-mail-related overload. Instead, e-mail's material properties entwined with social norms and interpretations in a way that led informants to single out e-mail as a cultural symbol of the overload they experience in their lives. Moreover, by serving as a symbol, e-mail distracted people from recognizing other sources of overload in their work lives. Our study deepens our understanding of the impact of communication technologies on people's lives and helps untangle those technologies' seemingly contradictory influences.

Keywords: e-mail; stress; work--life; coping; communication technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:22:y:2011:i:4:p:887-906

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