research-article

Overload is overloaded: email in the age of Gmail

Authors:

Catherine Grevet,

Eric GilbertAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 793 - 802

https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557013

Published: 26 April 2014 Publication History

Abstract

The term email overload has two definitions: receiving a large volume of incoming email, and having emails of different status types (to do, to read, etc). Whittaker and Sidner proposed the latter definition in 1996, noticing that email inboxes were far more complex than simply containing incoming messages. Sixteen years after Whittaker and Sidner, we replicate and extend their work with a qualitative analysis of Google's Gmail. We find that email overload, both in terms of volume and of status, is still a problem today. Our contributions are 1) updating the state of email overload, 2) extending our understanding of overload in the context of Gmail and 3) comparing personal with work email accounts: while work email tends to be status overloaded, personal email is also type overloaded. These comparisons between work and personal email suggest new avenues for email research.

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https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v9iSI18.5458
Clasing-Manquian PGonzalez J(2024)The Effect of Communication Emails on Web Survey Response Rate, Representativeness, and Response Bias: Results from a Factorial Randomized Control Trial in a College Student PopulationField Methods10.1177/1525822X241286341Online publication date: 4-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X241286341
Kong RSun RZhang CYuan YKonstan J(2024)Supporting Organizations in Improving Employee Bulk E-mail --- A Tool Design and Evaluation StudyProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869118:CSCW2(1-28)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
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Index Terms

Overload is overloaded: email in the age of Gmail
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2014

4206 pages

ISBN:9781450324731

DOI:10.1145/2556288

General Chairs:
Matt Jones
Swansea University, Wales, UK
,
Philippe Palanque
Université Paul Sabatier, France
,
Program Chairs:
Albrecht Schmidt
University of Stuttgart, Germany
,
Tovi Grossman
Autodesk Research, Canada

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Published: 26 April 2014

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Cited By

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https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v9iSI18.5458
Clasing-Manquian PGonzalez J(2024)The Effect of Communication Emails on Web Survey Response Rate, Representativeness, and Response Bias: Results from a Factorial Randomized Control Trial in a College Student PopulationField Methods10.1177/1525822X241286341Online publication date: 4-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X241286341
Kong RSun RZhang CYuan YKonstan J(2024)Supporting Organizations in Improving Employee Bulk E-mail --- A Tool Design and Evaluation StudyProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869118:CSCW2(1-28)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686911
Park SVishwabhan SMuller MKarger D(2024)“I Really Need Your Help with This Work...”: A System for Navigating the Tricky Terrain of Managing Up by Leveraging One’s Motivation to Get Things DoneACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/365260331:4(1-36)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3652603
Oh K(2024)A comprehensive investigation of researchers’ shared file management practices in cloud storageHuman–Computer Interaction10.1080/07370024.2024.2310551(1-20)Online publication date: 9-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2024.2310551
Zheng SBecker IKelley PKapadia A(2023)Checking, nudging or scoring? evaluating e-mail user security tools76Proceedings of the Nineteenth USENIX Conference on Usable Privacy and Security10.5555/3632186.3632190(57-76)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3632186.3632190
Anumudu C(2023)UNVEILING USER GRATIFICATIONS SOUGHT FROM UTILIZING EMAIL IN INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS: EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIAN ACADEMIC STAFFAsian Journal of Applied Communication10.47836/ajac.12.01.0312:1(37-51)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.47836/ajac.12.01.03
Moore JCahill MDiScala JWang W(2023)“We Collect TONS of Data … We Report What We Think Our Community Cares the Most About … We Learn so Much from It:” School Librarians’ Evidence Collection and Sharing PracticesLibri10.1515/libri-2022-001873:1(63-75)Online publication date: 6-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.1515/libri-2022-0018
Sergeeva ARohles BDistler VKoenig V(2023)“We Need a Big Revolution in Email Advertising”: Users’ Perception of Persuasion in Permission-based Advertising EmailsProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581163(1-21)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Arsovski SOladele MCheok APremcevski VMarkoski B(2022)An approach to email categorization and response generationComputer Science and Information Systems10.2298/CSIS211101009A19:2(913-934)Online publication date: 2022
https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS211101009A
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