Americans call e-mail essential to their jobs.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: Up front: news, trends & analysis

Americans are not really being inundated with e-mail messages. In fact, if you feel overwhelmed by the volume of e-mail you receive at work, you are among a very small group. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that overwhelming levels of e-mail are quite atypical, an outcome that surprised even the researchers.

According to the telephone-based survey of 2,447 Internet users, including 1,003 who use e-mail at work, 60 percent of Americans who use e-mail at work receive 10 or fewer messages on an average day and send five or less. Only 6 percent receive more than 50 e-mails. Among that small percentage, only 11 percent say they feel overwhelmed by e-mail.

The average wired American worker spends only about 30 minutes a day dealing with e-mail. Three-quarters of e-mail users at work spend an hour or less each day managing e-mail, and half spent less than 15 minutes.

The study also found that more than 60 percent of people employed in the United States have Internet access at work and virtually all those use e-mail on the job. That translates into 57 million wired American workers, more than double the amount of people with Internet access at work just two years ago.

U.S. workers with e-mail check...