Email obsession ‘harms recovery of the economy and our health’

 

Britain’s economic recovery could be strangled by an obsession with communicating via email and voicemail, a London businessman has claimed.

Stephen Taylor, who runs promotional and merchandising company Propaganda, says UK firms risk losing out to international rivals because they rely on digital technology as a “safe harbour for mediocrity”, rather than talking to people directly.

He spoke as a study by researchers at Loughborough University found “email stress”, caused by staff having too many digital messages to deal with, is leading to increased health problems and reduced efficiency.

Mr Taylor said: “People hide behind the invisible walls of email, voicemail and no-name policies on switchboards. Mediocre performers survive in companies by saying they are too busy, and it’s a constant frustration that you cannot get through to anyone.

“When you do, you are greeted by indifference and a negative ‘I’m too busy’ attitude, or the deadening silence of email.”

Mr Taylor, 42 — a self-made millionaire by the age of 29 — added: “If we don’t shape up someone else from another country who does care will take the business. It is getting worse. Email and voicemail are slowly strangling British business. It is death by computer.”

He told how while he was in Singapore recently he had an idea he wanted to put to advertising agency McCann-Erickson: “I looked their number up, got through to the MD’s PA, and within 10 minutes he had called me back, asking how he could help.

“In the UK, I probably wouldn’t have been able to find their number on the website, and if I had got through would have been asked to write an email that would have gone unseen or unanswered until the opportunity had passed. The warning is clear: if you hide behind email, you are missing opportunities unearthed by real conversation.”

Professor Tom Jackson of Loughborough University, who has been dubbed “Mr Email” due to his research into information technology, studied staff working in a government department. He found a link between the volume of emails people had to deal with and increased blood pressure, raised heart rates and the levels of stress-related hormone cortisol.

The more emails people had to handle, the less efficient they became.

His paper concludes: “Long-term short sharp increases such as this can lead to chronic health conditions such as hypertension, thyroid disease, heart failure and coronary artery disease.”

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