Email addiction may increase stress

Too much email use may lead to raised stress levels as well as health conditions such as hypertension and heart failure, a UK scientist has warned.

Tom Jackson, professor from Loughborough University has done extensive research on the impact of work email on health and mental wellbeing. He has discovered a direct relation between email use and increased levels of stress as well as other health conditions such as thyroid disease, hypertension, heart failure and coronary artery disease.

“Multiuse gadgets like Blackberry’s and iPhone allow workers to be accessible 24 hours per day, and due to this it is likely that there will be an increase in stress levels,” said Jackson. “Another condition is that many employees do not realise that they are burdened, as in my study users perceived themselves not to be stressed when the physiological findings showed their bodies were under increased stress.

“This shows that workers might find it difficult to self-regulate their use of communication media to ensure they do not become overwhelmed by stress,” he said. He added, “the importance of this is that long term short sharp increases such as this can lead to long term chronic health conditions.”

However, Jackson, included that email is not a bad communication tool, but poor email training and management is the problem.

In a recent study he estimated that poor email use was costing employers up to £10,000 per employee per year in lost productivity.