Heart rate monitors were attached to computer users in a suburban office setting, while software sensors detected how often they switched windows. People who read email changed screens twice as often and were in a steady \u201chigh alert\u201d state, with more constant heart rates. Those removed from email for five days experienced more natural, variable heart rates.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe found that when you remove email from workers\u2019 lives, they multitask less and experience less stress<\/strong>,\u201d said UCI informatics professor Gloria Mark. She co-authored the study, \u201cA Pace Not Dictated by Electrons,\u201d with UCI assistant project scientist Stephen Voida and Army senior research scientist Armand Cardello. The UCI team will present the work Monday, May 7, at the Association for Computing Machinery\u2019s Computer-Human Interaction Conference in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n The study was funded by the Army and the National Science Foundation. Participants were computer-dependent civilian employees at the Army\u2019s Natick Soldier Systems Center outside Boston. Those with no email reported feeling better able to do their jobs and stay on task, with fewer stressful and time-wasting interruptions.<\/p>\n Measurements bore that out, Mark said. People with email switched windows an average of 37 times per hour. Those without changed screens half as often \u2013 about 18 times in an hour.<\/p>\n She said the findings could be useful for boosting productivity and suggested that controlling email login times, batching messages or other strategies might be helpful<\/strong>. \u201cEmail vacations on the job may be a good idea,\u201d she noted. \u201cWe need to experiment with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark said it was hard to recruit volunteers for the study, but \u201cparticipants loved being without email, especially if their manager said it was OK. In general, they were much happier to interact in person.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting up and walking to someone\u2019s desk offered physical relief too<\/strong>, she said. Other research has shown that people with steady \u201chigh alert\u201d heart rates have more cortisol, a hormone linked to stress. Stress on the job, in turn, has been linked to a variety of health problems.<\/p>\n Study subjects worked in a variety of positions and were evenly split between women and men. The only downside to the experience was that the individuals without email reported feeling somewhat isolated<\/strong>. But they were able to garner critical information from colleagues who did have email.<\/p>\n The Army is examining use of smartphones and such applications as email for soldiers on battlefields, said David Accetta, spokesman for the Natick facility\u2019s research and development section. \u201cThis data may very well prove helpful,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the UC Irvine press release: Being cut off from work email significantly reduces stress and allows employees to focus far better, according to a new study by UC Irvine… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,10,8],"tags":[12,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2788,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions\/2788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Office.jpg\" "\\"dealing")
Being cut off from work email significantly reduces stress and allows employees to focus far better<\/strong>, according to a new study by UC Irvine and U.S. Army researchers.<\/p>\n