WASHINGTON – What would happen to you if you didn’t have email for a week? You might be surprised.
Researchers with the U.S. Army and the University of California at Irvine used heart rate monitors and other sensors to track two groups of office workers.
One group had email shut off for five days. The other group’s members got to keep their email.
The study found that those with email access remained in a state of high alert, while the other group enjoyed normal heart patterns, less stress and better focus.
“We found that when you remove email from workers’ lives, they multitask less and experience less stress,” said Gloria Mark, thestudy’s co-author and UCI informatics professor.
The Army funded the study along with the National Science Foundation.
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