The Atlantic: “The Most Honest Out-of-Office Message” (Gloria Mark cited)

June 12, 2018

Research has shown that returning to email after a brief hiatus can be stressful. In a 2012 study, Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California at Irvine who studies how information-technology use affects people, prohibited some office workers from using email at all for one workweek, and let others maintain their usual use. She strapped heart-rate monitors on all of them. Mark found that the participants who were cut off from email experienced significant reductions in their stress levels, as indicated by changes in their resting heart rates. When people return to their regular routine, so does the stress, she says.

Read the full story at The Atlantic.