Emails 8216;waste an hour a day8217;

They have based their findings on a survey of 4,000 employees from 150 business houses in Britain.

The poll found that the average worker wastes one hour every day through inefficient use of email; most do not filter or organise their emails correctly; and many of emails sent do not help people do their jobs, 8216;The Daily Telegraph8217; reported.

And, according to a spokesman for communications consultants Expert Messaging, which commissioned the research, this could be because workers had not been given appropriate training for proper use of emails.

As a communications tool that we have all grown up with, but seldom if ever given any formal training on or provided any corporate guidelines for, it8217;s no wonder that email is a significant sources of stress, miscommunication and inefficiency for companies and individuals,8221; he said.

Agreed Nigel Shadbolt, a Professor of artificial intelligence at Southampton University: 8220;I think we are still working out what is acceptable and unacceptable email use.

8220;Some companies have banned their workers from sending carbon copies of emails, and in extreme cases have banned them from sending emails altogether. There8217;s a problem that with superabundance of information there8217;s a scarcity of attention.

8220;Since our attention span is always limited, since there are only a certain number of hours in the day, we do8217;ve to be more thoughtful about what we send and receive.8221;