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Reconceptualizing E-Mail Overload

Cynthia L. King

Naval Postgraduate School

Brian Baroni

Linda Cook

Marian Keitelman

Steve Miller

Adelia Wardle

U.S. Department of Army

This study explores social processes associated with e-mail overload, drawing on Sproull and Kiesler's first and second-order effects of communication technologies and Boden's theory of lamination. In a three-part study, the authors examined e-mail interactions from a government organization by logging e-mails, submitting an e-mail string to close textual analysis, and analyzing focus group data about e-mail overload. The results reveal three characteristics that contribute to e-mail overload— unstable requests, pressures to respond, and the delegation of tasks and shifting interactants—suggesting that e-mail talk, as social interaction, may both create and affect overload.

Key Words: e-mail • e-mail overload • information overload • technology • discourse analysis

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