Email and other communications technologies are supposed to make us more productive. But has the pendulum swung so far that these tools are now a productivity drain?

Many large tech companies are worried that it has. That’s why IBM, Intel, Google, Microsoft and more than a dozen other companies and academic institutions have come together to form the Information Overload Research Group, the New York Times reports. The group, which was founded a couple of weeks ago and will hold its first meeting in July, says its mission is to reduce the “information pollution” that’s taking over email inboxes and to win back the productivity that’s lost when workers compulsively check for new messages.
Business Technology : Tech Companies Join to Stop Email Addiction