Workplace

Workplace

Don’t touch that e-mail

A growing number of employers are rolling out “no e-mail” Fridays or weekends, said Sue Shellenbarger in The Wall Street Journal. U.S. Cellular, Deloitte & Touche, and Intel have all done so recently, to encourage more face-to-face contact and give in-boxes a break. “While the bans typically allow e-mailing clients and customers or responding to urgent matters, the normal flow of routine internal e-mail is halted.” Employees often initially balk at the ban, “like recovering smokers in a nicotine fit.” But many rediscover the benefits of picking up the phone or venturing to the office next door.

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The advantages of a conversation over e-mail are clearly greatest when trouble is at hand, said Daniel Goleman in The New York Times. “But there are ways in which e-mail may subtly encourage such trouble in the first place.” Researchers in the emerging field of social neuroscience say there’s a “design flaw” in the way our brains interact with computer screens. “We tend to misinterpret positive e-mail messages as more neutral, and neutral ones as more negative, than the sender intended.” Conflict is more likely to arise and jokes somehow don’t seem as funny—even with those cute little smiley faces.