USA Today looks at the growing proliferation of, and resistance to, electronic mail.
Today about 150 engineers at chipmaker Intel will kick off “Zero E-mail Fridays.” E-mail-free Fridays already are the norm at cell carrier U.S. Cellular and at order-processing company PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services in Alpharetta, Ga.
Prominent techies are tackling the problem individually by declaring “e-mail bankruptcy” — deleting or archiving an entire in-box and starting over. Among them: prominent tech bloggers Jeff Nolan, Michael Arrington and Vanessa Fox, and venture capitalist Fred Wilson.
E-mail overload is caused by the sheer volume of messages zipping around the globe. Each day, about 39.7 billion person-to-person e-mails, 17.1 billion automated alerts, and 40.5 billion pieces of spam are sent worldwide. White-collar workers often receive 140 messages a day, executive coach Marsha Egan says.