Many American workers have heard that familiar ding just as they sit down to dinner or plop in front of the television. A glance at their smartphone shows a preview of a work-related message. A co-worker has a “quick question” or is “just circling back” to an earlier discussion.
Technically, the worker is off the clock and not required to respond. But people admit to engaging in email during their off time. Twenty-eight percent of American workers said they check their work email “extremely often” or “often” during their off hours, according to a 2023 survey by Pew Research. Another 27 percent said they “sometimes” check their email.
For people who check their email after hours, research has found these workers feel the email must be urgent because it was sent outside of normal business hours. Scholars are finding such constant communication is exhausting and risks worker burnout.
Email Response Times
In a 2021 study in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, a research team conducted a series of experiments to test email response times with what they called “email urgency bias.”
