Why do we feel pressure to reply to emails and messages immediately?
We feel pressure to reply quickly because fast responses have become a signal of commitment at work, and because we tend to assume other people expect an instant answer when, often, they do not. Psychologists call this urge “telepressure”, and it can damage both wellbeing and performance.
The term was introduced by Larissa Barber and Alecia Santuzzi at Northern Illinois University. They defined workplace telepressure as being preoccupied with work messages and feeling an urge to answer them quickly. In their 2015 research, telepressure predicted burnout, absence from work and poorer sleep, over and above other demands of the job.
Much of the pressure is self-imposed. In a series of experiments, Laura Giurge of London Business School and Vanessa Bohns of Cornell University identified what they called the email urgency bias. Across eight studies involving more than 4,000 people, they found that people receiving non-urgent emails outside working hours overestimated how quickly the sender expected a reply, which increased their stress and lowered their wellbeing. The researchers also noted that many workplaces now treat speed of response as a sign of hard work, encouraging people to be permanently available.
There are deeper psychological forces too. We have a strong social instinct to reciprocate, so an unanswered message feels like an unpaid debt. Unfinished tasks also nag at us until they are resolved. And notifications are designed to grab our attention, making it hard to leave a message unread.
The fix is surprisingly simple. Giurge and Bohns found that a short note from the sender explaining when a reply is needed reduced the urgency bias. Adding “no need to reply until Monday” to an email costs nothing and helps everyone. For your inbox, see my 7 ways to avoid emails after your working day has ended, and why employers need to consider the health and safety of emails. (See also the FAQs on digital wellbeing.)
Why does email make us less productive?
Email makes us less productive mainly because of how we use it. Checking constantly fragments our attention, each interruption takes time to recover from, and dealing with messages feels like work even when it achieves very little. Email itself is a useful tool; the problem is letting it run our day.
The evidence on frequent checking is clear. Kostadin Kushlev and Elizabeth Dunn at the University of British Columbia asked 124 adults to spend one week checking their email just three times a day and another week checking as often as they liked. During the limited week, people reported significantly lower daily stress, and lower stress predicted higher wellbeing. Tellingly, those who checked email constantly did not feel any more productive.
The bigger cost is interruption. Every time you switch to your inbox, part of your mind stays there when you return to your main task, and it takes time to get back into it. (See “How does constant switching between digital notifications affect workplace productivity?” below.)
Email also creates what is sometimes called “work about work”. Replying, forwarding, filing and copying people in feels busy and gives us a feeling of accomplishment. Each reply also tends to generate more emails, so the faster you respond, the more you receive and the more work you think you are doing. It’s an illusion.
The answer is to manage email deliberately rather than reactively. Turn off notifications, check at set times, and batch your replies. If your inbox feels overwhelming, see Is your email out of control?, Five ways to deal with email overload and Are you checking your email too frequently?
Why is it so easy to misinterpret the tone of an email or text message?
It is easy to misread tone because written messages lose the cues we rely on in conversation: tone of voice, facial expression, pauses and body language. Writers also assume their meaning is obvious, because they can “hear” the tone in their own heads, while readers fill the gaps with their own mood and expectations.
The classic study comes from Justin Kruger and Nicholas Epley. Students were asked to convey statements that were either sarcastic or serious. Those who heard voice recordings identified the intended tone correctly 73% of the time, but those who read the same statements in emails managed only 56%, barely better than chance. Yet the email writers had expected around 78% of readers to understand them.
The researchers explained this gap as egocentrism: we find it hard to step outside our own perspective and imagine how someone else will interpret our words. When we write “Great job on the report”, we know whether we mean it warmly or sarcastically. The reader does not, as the American Psychological Association explains.
Readers have biases too. Emails tend to be read as more negative than the sender intended, especially neutral or brief messages. A short reply such as “Fine.” can feel cold or angry, even if the sender was simply busy. Our own mood and our relationship with the sender colour how we read every word, which is one reason rude emails have a wide impact.
To reduce misunderstandings, avoid sarcasm and irony in writing, add a little warmth at the start and end of messages, and reread anything sensitive from the recipient’s perspective before you send it. If a message is likely to be emotional or complex, pick up the phone or talk face to face instead. And it is always worth asking: Do you press the send button too soon?
How does constant switching between digital notifications affect workplace productivity?
Constant switching harms productivity because our brains do not truly multitask. Each time a notification pulls us away, we lose time getting back to what we were doing, part of our attention stays stuck on the previous task, and the day becomes fragmented into short bursts of shallow work.
Gloria Mark at the University of California, Irvine, has spent two decades studying attention at work. Her research found that after an interruption, people took around 25 minutes on average to return to their original task, typically working on two other tasks in between. She has also found that the average time people spend on one screen before switching has fallen from about two and a half minutes in 2004 to around 47 seconds recently.
Even when we do return, we are not fully back. Sophie Leroy, now at the University of Washington Bothell, showed in a 2009 study that people struggle to move their attention away from an unfinished task, and their performance on the next task suffers as a result. She called this “attention residue”.
The scale of interruption is striking. Microsoft’s 2025 report on the “infinite workday” found that employees were interrupted every two minutes on average by meetings, emails or chat messages, adding up to 275 pings a day. These figures relate to the most heavily contacted users, but they show how fragmented modern work can become.
The result is that we feel busy and exhausted while getting less done. I have described this as being digitally exhausted. Taking on more and switching between it all does not make us more efficient either, as I explain in Will you maximise your efficiency if you take on extra work? The solution is to switch less: turn off non-essential notifications, finish one task before starting another where you can, and create protected time for focused work.
What causes video call fatigue?
Video call fatigue, often called “Zoom fatigue”, is caused by the unnatural way video calls make us interact. We stare at close-up faces for long periods, work harder to send and read non-verbal signals, watch ourselves constantly and sit still for hours. Back-to-back calls with no breaks make it worse.
The most influential explanation comes from Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab. In a 2021 paper, he proposed four causes: intense close-up eye contact, extra mental effort, increased self-evaluation from seeing our own video, and reduced physical movement.
Each one has a psychological basis. In real life, being stared at by a face close to ours signals either intimacy or conflict, yet video calls do this for hours. We have to exaggerate nods and expressions to show we are listening, which is tiring. Seeing ourselves all day is like working in front of a mirror, which encourages self-criticism. Later research by Bailenson’s team found that women reported more video call fatigue than men, partly because of this “mirror anxiety”. And being tied to the camera’s view stops us moving around, which normally helps us think.
The structure of the day matters as much as the technology. In a study by Microsoft’s Human Factors Lab, people wearing EEG caps showed a steady build-up of stress during back-to-back video meetings. When they had short breaks between meetings, their stress levels reset instead of accumulating.
There are simple remedies. Bailenson suggests making the video window smaller rather than using full screen, so faces appear less intrusive. Hide your self-view once you have checked how you look, take audio-only breaks, schedule gaps between calls and ask whether a meeting needs to be a video call at all. Many conversations work just as well by phone or in writing.
Does working from home reduce productivity?
It depends on how much people work from home and what kind of work they do. The best evidence suggests that hybrid working, with two or three days in the office, does not harm productivity and improves staff retention. Fully remote working can reduce productivity, mainly because communication and collaboration become harder.
The strongest study on hybrid work is a randomised trial by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom and colleagues, published in Nature in 2024. It followed 1,612 employees at the travel company Trip.com and found that working from home two days a week made no difference to performance reviews or promotions over the following two years. It also reduced resignation rates by a third.
Fully remote work is a different story. One study of more than 10,000 IT professionals found that when they switched to working from home, hours went up, output fell slightly, and productivity per hour declined by between 8% and 19%. A key reason was higher communication costs: employees connected with fewer colleagues and had fewer one-to-one meetings with their managers.
So the question is less “home or office?” and more “what does each place do best?” Home is often better for focused individual work, free from office interruptions. The office is better for collaboration, learning from colleagues, mentoring and building relationships. People are also different: some thrive at home, while others feel isolated or struggle with distractions.
I have explored this in Do people love working from home, or hate the office? and Should we end the concept of the “9 to 5”? For some tasks, a change of scene can help too, as I suggest in Is it time you should go to work in a coffee shop?
How can technology help rather than hinder focus at work?
Technology helps focus when you set it up to protect your attention rather than compete for it. That means switching off non-essential notifications, using focus modes and calendar blocks, batching email and messages, and keeping your phone out of sight when you need to concentrate.
The default settings of most digital tools are designed to interrupt you, so the first step is to change them. In one email study, the group who checked less often were also told to turn notifications off, and they felt less stressed without being any less productive. (See “Why does email make us less productive?” above.) Most computers and phones now have focus or “do not disturb” modes that silence everything except genuine priorities.
Where you keep your phone matters too. In a 2017 study led by Adrian Ward at the University of Texas at Austin, people performed worse on tests of mental capacity when their phone was nearby, even when it was switched off and they were not using it. When phones were left in another room, performance improved. Later attempts to repeat this study have produced mixed results, but putting your phone out of sight is an easy precaution.
Technology can also protect your time. Block periods in your calendar for focused work and treat them like meetings. Use scheduled sending so your out-of-hours emails do not interrupt other people. Agree team norms about which channels are for time-critical matters and which can wait. Tools that summarise long threads or meetings can also help, provided you still apply your judgement. (See the FAQs on the psychology of artificial intelligence.)
Above all, remember that being busy is not the same as being productive. As I argue in Will you kickstart your productivity in the year ahead by being less busy?, doing less, with more focus, usually achieves more.
What is deep work, and why is it harder online?
Deep work is focused, uninterrupted concentration on a cognitively demanding task, the kind of thinking that produces your most valuable work. It is harder online because digital tools constantly invite us to switch, check and respond, so long periods of uninterrupted attention have become rare.
The term was popularised by Cal Newport, a computer scientist at Georgetown University, in his 2016 book Deep Work. He describes it as professional activity carried out in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes our mental abilities to their limit. Its opposite is “shallow work”: routine, low-value tasks such as answering emails and attending updates, which can be done while distracted.
Deep work matters because complex thinking takes time to get going. It can take many minutes to load a problem into your mind fully, and any interruption forces you to start again. Yet, Gloria Mark’s research suggests that people now typically spend less than a minute on one screen before switching. At that rate, deep work cannot even begin. (See “How does constant switching between digital notifications affect workplace productivity?” above.)
Working online worsens this for several reasons. Email, chat and video tools are always open on the same screen we use for focused work. Many workplaces expect rapid responses, so going offline can feel risky. And digital busyness is visible in a way that thinking is not: sending messages shows you are working, while sitting quietly with a hard problem looks like doing nothing. This is one reason people can end up working really hard but not getting the job done.
To create space for deep work, schedule it, ideally at the time of day when you think best. Close email and chat entirely, not just minimise them. Tell colleagues when you are unavailable and when you will respond. Start with an hour or two and build up. Organisations can help by protecting focus time, reducing unnecessary meetings and making it clear that slow replies are acceptable.
How do digital tools alter motivation and meaning at work?
Digital tools can increase motivation by giving people flexibility, faster feedback and a clearer view of progress. But they can also undermine it, especially when they are used to monitor people, blur the boundary between work and home, or reduce work to a stream of messages and metrics that hide its purpose.
Psychologists often explain motivation through self-determination theory, developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. It suggests that we are most motivated when we feel a sense of autonomy, competence, and connection with others. Digital tools can support all three, for example by letting people choose where and when they work, or by connecting colleagues across locations. They can also damage all three.
Monitoring is a clear example. The American Psychological Association’s 2023 Work in America survey found that 56% of workers who were electronically monitored felt tense or stressed at work, compared with 40% of those who were not. Monitored workers were also more likely to feel micromanaged and to feel that they did not matter. A meta-analysis led by Daniel Ravid and Tara Behrend found no evidence that electronic performance monitoring improved performance.
Being always connected can also drain the enjoyment from work. Laura Giurge and Kaitlin Woolley have found that working during non-standard times, such as weekends and holidays, undermines intrinsic motivation, because people compare work with the leisure they could be having. Digital tools make that kind of working all too easy.
Meaning comes from seeing how our work makes a difference to other people. When work is fragmented into emails, tickets and dashboards, that connection can get lost. It helps to measure what matters rather than what is easy to count (see Are you sure you are measuring the right things at work?) and to use digital tools to share thanks and show people the impact of their work. Even a short message of appreciation can make a real difference, as I discovered when a colleague’s email reminded me how tiny changes at work can add meaning.
How can managers lead teams effectively online?
Managers lead online teams well by focusing on outcomes rather than activity, being clear about priorities, keeping in regular personal contact, setting shared rules for communication and deliberately building trust. The core skills of leadership do not change, but online they have to be practised more intentionally.
A common trap is what Microsoft has called “productivity paranoia”. In its 2022 Work Trend Index, 87% of employees said they were productive at work, while 85% of leaders said hybrid work made it challenging to be confident that people were being productive. Microsoft warned that managers miss the old visual cues of seeing people at their desks, and that tracking activity rather than impact undermines trust. As noted above, close monitoring tends to raise stress without improving performance. (See “How do digital tools alter motivation and meaning at work?” above.)
What employees want instead is clarity. In Microsoft’s research, more than 80% of employees said they wanted their managers to help them prioritise their work, but fewer than a third said they had received clear guidance. Good online managers agree goals, explain what matters most and judge people on results.
Personal contact matters even more when people are apart. In the study of IT professionals working from home mentioned above, employees had fewer one-to-one meetings with their supervisors, and this was one of the reasons productivity fell. Regular one-to-ones, quick check-ins and time for informal conversation help replace the chance encounters of the office.
Practical steps include:
- Agree communication norms. Decide together which channels are for urgent matters, what response times are reasonable and when people are offline.
- Make meetings count. Keep them short, with clear purposes and breaks between them, and use written updates where possible.
- Build psychological safety. Ask for views, admit your own mistakes and make it safe for people to raise problems.
- Include everyone. In hybrid meetings, make sure remote participants have an equal voice.
- Recognise effort and results. Online, good work can go unseen unless managers make a point of noticing it.
Trust sits at the heart of all of this. I explore the difference between monitoring people and enabling them in Is accountability preventing us from being responsible?