Feature

Going Postal

Instead, the handsome guy has been replaced by hundreds of semi-strangers forever wanting to do virtual business. "The convenience of e-mail is far outweighed by the fact that more people have my attention," says Hochschild. "What happens is that because people can reach me more easily by e-mail, I end up in communication with more people who are peripheral to my life while not making enough time for the people who are primary."

One solution for overburdened e-mail users is to use multiple addresses, including one that is made available only to a small number of key people. Of course, that means checking for e-mail at more than one address, itself time-consuming. Some people are turning to filters, now built into most e-mail programs, to sort and prioritize their incoming mail.

Brian Reid is a research manager at Lucent who has been using e-mail since the late sixties; he helped develop the technology as a Carnegie Mellon grad student. Reid, who receives as many as 2,000 messages a day, has perhaps the most sophisticated sorting system yet devised. One filter displays any block of messages from the same address or on the same subject as a cluster so that he can decide in a quick glance whether any of them merit his attention. Another tells him when he has received multiple messages from the same sender in a certain period of time -- on the grounds that it might suggest an emergency. (It's never happened, but you can't be too careful.) Incoming mail from close family members beeps in different tones that Reid can recognize.

But in the end, even the most elaborate systems can do only so much. Like many others, Reid now spends much of his day checking, reading, and sending e-mail, including at least a couple of hours at home each night. In virtuality, the attempt to log off is the equivalent of trying to eat just one potato chip. "My wife will often say to me, "Dear, will you turn that thing off and come to bed?" Reid acknowledges. "But for me, being plugged in is just part of who I am."

Sarah Crichton manages to take a few hours off from work between the time she gets home and when her 9-year-old daughter goes to bed. Then she's back in front of her laptop around 10:30 or 11 answering e-mail. The difference is that she does so while sitting in bed, alongside her husband, who has his own laptop. "This wasn't the sort of romantic image we had of ourselves when we fell in love twenty years ago," Crichton acknowledges. "But the truth is, we're both pretty content doing it."

As for the telephone conversation we've been having, Crichton insists she's resisted answering a single e-mail during our 45-minute chat. But that doesn't mean she hasn't stolen an occasional glance at the incoming flow. "I've got twelve new messages," she suddenly volunteers. "This is very exciting. It's been good talking with you, but I have to hang up now."