“Is email overload bad for you?” ask Kostadin Kushlev and Elizabeth W. Dunn of the University of British Columbia as the marshall their research to show that yes indeed it is bad for you in so many ways. They proceed to detail these ways in their opinion article in the New York Times Sunday Review.

But is their article really about overload or is it about compulsiveness? Their research, published here in Computers & Human Behavior, studies frequency of email checking and its effect on happiness, effectiveness and general well being. In other words, the study is not about overload but about the anxiety caused by constant checking of your inbox.

One way to remove that anxiety — #noemail. Just sayin’

Shel Holtz of Ragan.com seeks a solution for offices and enterprises that may not keep offices in his blog post “Will companies ever embrace a culture of messaging?” reposted at Ragan as “Can internal networks replace email in the workplace?” Holtz’s section titles give a good precis of his argument: “Email is ineffective for most communication,” “Most enterprise social networks fail,” “What about those external social networks?” and finally “Message Mission Control.”

While Holtz doesn’t bring any research or references that are new to readers of this blog, he does use the good work done by researchers to present an intelligent argument for enterprises looking to Yammer, Hipchat, Chatter, etc and to understand the place of social business.

Don't Do It!