How Many Emails Do You Get a Day?

[seoulsearch]

Hey everyone,

In the days where we're all glued to our phones and computers at any given moment, I was wondering, on average, about how many emails do you receive a day?

I just thought it would be an interesting question. I was going to include a poll, but I'd actually like to know:

* What are the sources of most of your emails? Work? Shopping? Personal correspondence?

* How much time do you spend a day reading and sorting email?

* Are most of the emails you get worth your time, or are they more like junk mail? (If so, what do you do to cut down the number of emails you get?)

I was thinking about this last week as I logged in and found out I had about 45 emails--all because of things like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

I have a bad habit of finding a great deal in a store, then signing up for their email list (because I don't have a smart phone and don't use apps), and then suddenly I'm getting 35 emails a day of all advertising. But I usually don't bother to unsubscribe because I'm always thinking, "Some day I'm gonna need more pants/another frying pan/6 more bottles of something I can't find in the regular store, and maybe they'll send me a coupon!!"

And so, it's a daily routine of "Sort" and mostly, "Delete".

How about the rest of you?

 

[wisebeardman]

only thing I really get is stuff from a program-dev mail list and debian mail list.

 

[Abing]

only thing I really get is stuff from a program-dev mail list and debian mail list.

Nerd . (10 characters).

 

[BruceWayne]

I rarely check email anymore tbh, except for the one I have tied to my fantasy sports leagues. I don't even have it synced to my phone. I have 25,483 unread emails lol... I might get to them some day

 

[Abing]

Hi Kim! This is an interesting question lol. I've never actually counted my emails. But now that I think of it, I do kinda get a lot too.

* What are the sources of most of your emails? Work? Shopping? Personal correspondence?
- Work, I get 4 daily work emails. On a weekday, I get more, sometimes 30+, sometimes 5-10.
- Shopping, yes I get these emails too, having unknowingly signed up for them. Maybe like an ave of 5 a day.
- Personal correspondence, not a lot. I have way too many IM apps that I almost don't use my email for personal stuff anymore. Except for some of music collaboration work, I do use personal email for that, I get like maybe less than 5 a week.
- Blog updates. As I run a few blogs, I get emails occasionally: spam comments, server updates, software updates.
- Church emails. I get may 2-3 times a week.
- Ministry updates, newsletters from ministries, maybe 1-2 a day.

* How much time do you spend a day reading and sorting email?
- A long long time ago, I spent an entire day, unsubscribing from all shopping emails. It didn't stop though, as I continue to sign up for more shopping websites lel. So I have quite a few email rules set up, to auto delete spam and junk, auto archive not important-but-cant-delete emails. But I have no rules for my work emails so, I spend most of my email time checking work emails and archiving them if they're not really important. Leaving the urgent ones in my inbox for later.

Other than work emails, personal correspondence does take me some time too. Like, I'm exchanging music feedback with another musician and he has so much time in his hands lol so he sends me a lot of tracks to review a week, and I kinda do them all once a week, sit and go through all his emails and reply to each. That takes a lot of time too. But only once a week. Maybe a few hours a week in total.

* Are most of the emails you get worth your time, or are they more like junk mail? (If so, what do you do to cut down the number of emails you get?)
- Yes, most of my emails are worthy of my time. Work and music. Email rules are a life-saver.

 

[seoulsearch]

I've always had an interest in personal correspondence. Way back in the day , writing pen pals was a big hobby of mine, so on a good day, I'd get one or two REAL letters in my mailbox. It was so exciting to get something other than a bill or ad. I used to get in trouble for using all my parents' stamps until I could start buying my own!

Email is no different for me. I always scan the list, hoping for some sort of personal correspondence (just don't ask me how long it can take me to write back sometimes!!) One of my 2016 resolutions is to try to start up more pen pal correspondence relationships (though nowadays it's all electronic, of course.)

Maybe I'm just going through some sort of life crisis and looking for throwbacks to my childhood!

Of course, I should probably also answer the short list of personal emails I ALREADY have before I start taking on more.

I can just picture the group of people I already owe emails to coming after me with a flood of angry PM'S, all filled with electronic torches and pitchforks!

 

[Lynx]

Email?

*Lynx goes off to look up legacy formats for a refresher on what this "email" thing was....

Oh, THAT stuff! Hey do people still do that email thing? I thought it went out with yahoo IM and AOL.

Actually I do have an email address. Only thing I ever get is on Saturday night the pastor's wife sends me a list of announcements for the church bulletin.

seoulsearch why do you not have a throwaway email? You have your real email, see, then you have a dummy email that you use to sign up for all those things. Some have more than one throwaway email.

 

[Lynx]

I rarely check email anymore tbh, except for the one I have tied to my fantasy sports leagues. I don't even have it synced to my phone. I have 25,483 unread emails lol... I might get to them some day

Did someone say unread emails?

 

[JonahLynx]

Probably something like 0.08 emails per day.

 

[zeroturbulence]

I usually get only 2 to 4 emails a day, sometimes none. Its either a charity I gave to long ago, an electronics retailer that I signed up for just because they said they'd send me special coupon codes (and they do but usually not for something I want), or Redbox sending an ad or coupon (they often send free rental coupons so its kinda worth it), or my bank telling me about their low loan rates or special offers, or some forum wishing me a happy birthday when its not really my birthday.

Once in a blue moon I actually get an email from an actual person and then I go into shock for a moment and feel all special because someone took the time to email me.

 

[skylove7]

Lol
Pinterest....Pinterest....Pinterest emails...
Lol
Oh I forgot yea
Pinterest lol

 

[cmarieh]

On average combined with my two emails, one personal the other for school I get about 35 per day. Although, in my defense I keep in touch with some awesome people and I also have a subscription with the state and local police to hear of road closures, accidents or what not.

 

[violakat]

Probably get an average of 500 e-mails, but then I have about 5 emails. And of those that I check , only 3. Who Sends me the most e-mails, probably retailers, which I rarely open.

 

[zeroturbulence]

I forgot to add that I am very protective of my main email address and I have a second one that I use when I need to give an email address to join a website or something. But the few folks who have my email here have my main one.

 

[AsifinPassing]

Hey everyone,

In the days where we're all glued to our phones and computers at any given moment, I was wondering, on average, about how many emails do you receive a day?

Eleventy-Six or so... Probably a closer range would be 20-30 if taking the median, and 50-80 if we're talking average.

I just thought it would be an interesting question. I was going to include a poll, but I'd actually like to know:

* What are the sources of most of your emails? Work? Shopping? Personal correspondence?

Yes. Largely what some may consider 'spam', but not in a virus or porn-email type way (though if I ever checked my junk folder, I'm sure I'd find hundreds of those... o-o There's just no end... Anyway...). They tend to be notifications of things from Facebook, or here (CC), or Yahoo, or Linked In, or Twitter, or Tumblr, or various other sites related to my music, ministry, or just personal shopping and web-browsing habits (such as Ace Rewards, PlayStation, Amazon, etc etc).

Honestly, I wait for about two weeks and tend to have around 1000 emails. Based on that math, I roughly receive 71 emails a day. Some I check and are related to work, ministry, music, and correspondence, but those roughly comprise about 20-30% of the total.

* How much time do you spend a day reading and sorting email?

As aforementioned, I tend to wait a few weeks, so it literally takes me about 4-7 hours to go through them. If we did that math to account for daily checks (not including text messages and actually checking the social media updates the emails are about), it would roughly translate to about 30 minutes a day. However, including all the things we excluded, if I stayed on top of my various social networks, emails, blogs, etc... I imagine I'd waste about 10 hours a day simply checking, reading, deleting, sorting, replying to, etc all the things that I tend to receive or be included in.

I often say I should hire a personal assistant... to bad I couldn't afford to pay her. (Why her?! Couldn't it be a him?! Nope. I'm sexist toward that position, and want only a female PA... for various reasons.)

* Are most of the emails you get worth your time, or are they more like junk mail? (If so, what do you do to cut down the number of emails you get?)

I'm sure that PA would really help cut down on what emails I spent my time on, but as I said...I can't afford one yet, so... I guess nothing cuts down on them other than to remove yourself from the updates, choose not to respond to the correspondence, and *flag as spam* all the emails you just wanted to have immediately moved into junk or trash. I, however, do not do this. Why? I like to be informed...to an extent. Why do I need to know? I have my reasons... No more questions.

I was thinking about this last week as I logged in and found out I had about 45 emails--all because of things like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

I have a bad habit of finding a great deal in a store, then signing up for their email list (because I don't have a smart phone and don't use apps), and then suddenly I'm getting 35 emails a day of all advertising. But I usually don't bother to unsubscribe because I'm always thinking, "Some day I'm gonna need more pants/another frying pan/6 more bottles of something I can't find in the regular store, and maybe they'll send me a coupon!!"

And so, it's a daily routine of "Sort" and mostly, "Delete".

How about the rest of you?

 

[AsifinPassing]

I also feel the urge, especially due to the topic and the image in my last post, to share this entertaining video with y'all. Enjoy!

[video=youtube;qXlgOX95Q0U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXlgOX95Q0U[/video]

 

[AsifinPassing]

Sad face!!

I have noticed an expletive located within the recommended videos at the end of my embedded video. I'm very sorry to triple post, but on the event of said video being removed (which I understand), here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXlgOX95Q0U

My sincerest apologies. I thought it was all filtered well enough, but that one ninja'd it's way through.

 

[Abing]

Email?

*Lynx goes off to look up legacy formats for a refresher on what this "email" thing was....

Oh, THAT stuff! Hey do people still do that email thing? I thought it went out with yahoo IM and AOL.

Actually I do have an email address. Only thing I ever get is on Saturday night the pastor's wife sends me a list of announcements for the church bulletin.

seoulsearch why do you not have a throwaway email? You have your real email, see, then you have a dummy email that you use to sign up for all those things. Some have more than one throwaway email.

True story, I have a personal email and a throwaway email. But for some awesome reason that I fail to remember now, I set up my throwaway email to auto-forward all emails to my personal one. I'm pretty sure it was a valid reason but I can't remember anymore. Now that I think about it, it's kinda stupid.

 

[seoulsearch]

Lynx--I am all about simplicity and streamlining when I can get away with it. Seeing as I don't get all that many personal emails, I can't see a reason to create yet another account I have to maintain. At one time I was a part of 4 sites I used to log onto every day--now I've cut it down to 2 and I'm actually happier with that.

I have a tendency to micromanage everything and then my OCD/ADHD/temporary dyslexia kicks in (I've never been actually diagnosed with these things, I just like to say that's the reason why I'm so scatterbrained) and it just gets overwhelming. As it stands now, it usually only takes 10 minutes to check my email, so adding any other accounts doesn't seem necessary.

Asifin--I watched the video and I get what the guy's saying ! But there's just something I love about written correspondence. It really makes me think about what I want to say (believe it or not.) And, I LOVE handwriting, especially since it's such a dying art today. I tend to think of handwriting as a person's own personal font.

I also used to write a lot of people in other countries and people who are in prison, which can really force the reader to work hard at "getting" what the other person is trying to say. They might not be able to write very good English, or they might only have a 6th grade education (I'm not trying to stereotype all people in prison, but I found this was often the experience), but for me, it taught me a lot about understanding what someone is really trying to say--without perfect grammar or an endless vocabulary.

I often feel that written communication is a clue as to what the heart is really saying, which is something that transcends beyond words, whether in print or in speech.

 

[seoulsearch]

Heh heh heh... Here's a good example of how my brain works...

I actually just went to check my email and there was a message from a restaurant and a message with an ad from a dating site listed back-to-back.

My brain mashed the two headlines together like this: "Ravioli Just Got Better! We've Found You The Perfect Match!!" (even the the messages were actually listed in reverse order.)

And of course, I was thinking, "Yes, yes, yes!!! Ravioli... and I... sound like a perfect match!!!"

Sigh. Only in the dream world of email headings.