Nearly half of all Americans say they're hooked on email, and Duke staff and faculty are spending increasingly more of their workday checking and responding to it. The ease and convenience of email have prompted overuse, overdependence — and information overload. But don't blame technology for fragmented attention and growing anxiety, as today's workers struggle to keep up with their constantly beeping inboxes and rising expectation in a 24/7 culture.

"Most people let their email manage them. They don't manage it," said Tim Pyatt, Duke's university archivist and co-principal investigator of a four-year study of email use at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "It's just amazing how it's come to dominate the workforce."