Due to the growth of emails, instant messaging, and cell phones, multiple surveys have described that work productivity has been negatively affected. It may appear ironic but some of the corporations responsible for the above technologies are now trying to find the solution.

The big technology companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Google, and IBM have created a non-profit group, the Overload Research Group, to examine the problem and come up with cultural and technological solutions to help workers.

Based on many employers, comprehensive solutions are needed for the reduction digital interruptions. For instance, RescueTime, a company which researches computer habits, discovered that a typical IT worker who sits at the computer all day, checks his email 50 times, uses instant messaging 77 times, and visits 40 websites. The study of 40,000 people used a tracking software installed on their computers.

The research company Basex estimated the business cost to be more than $650 billion annually in productivity lost due to unneeded interruptions. Much of the cost originates from the time it requires people to focus again.

There are basic software tools currently being developed to reduce distractions. Google recently developed “E-Mail Addict” which allows a workers to cut themselves off of their email for 15 minutes. However, users can cheat simply by hitting the escape button.

Intel initiated 2 studies last year with 300 engineers and other employees from a microchip design group to examine this problem. The first study looked at employees who were encouraged not to use digital as well as in-person contact for 4 hours on Tuesday mornings. Laminated cards that said ‘quiet time’ were posted in the workplace to remind the workers of this. After a few weeks, employees found the conditions too strict, but it did have an impact. Almost 75% of participants supported extending this approach for the all employees.

In the second study, named “zero e-mail Fridays,” employees were encouraged to use face-to-face but not digital communication for that day. 30% of employees favored this approach, and 60% recommended that it would be used throughout the company.

                                                    
I picked on search engine Mahalo as an example of a company emailing its customers passwords. I mentioned how having your password floating around openly on mail servers can defeat the purpose of having a password in the first place. Mahalo’s founder and CEO, Jason Calacanis, joined the discussion and some good thoughts were shared from both sides of the issue.

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So I finally gave in and started using Twitter this past weekend (if you’re on Twitter, follow me at twitter.com/bobcaswell). What is Twitter? It’s a mix of instant messaging, email, Facebook, and text messaging. It’s a network of users that follow each other. Here’s how it works:

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Let’s face it; we all reuse the same password for login accounts all over the Internet. At best, some of us create a few passwords through which we rotate.

So why is it that some companies still insist on sending me my password via email right after I create my online account? The reason I have a password in the first place is so that it doesn’t flow back and forth openly in cyberspace only to reside peacefully on multiple mail servers.

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This past week a national cable and high-speed Internet provider by the name of Charter Communications accidentally deleted all the contents of 14,000 active email accounts. A spokeswoman for the company explained that there is no way for them to retrieve anything that was erased. The spokeswoman offered this explanation and apology:

“We really are sincerely sorry for having had this happen and do apologize to all those folks who were affected by the error… During this maintenance we erroneously deleted active accounts along with the others. It’s never happened before. They are taking steps to make sure it never happens again.”

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The popularity of adding some sort of quote as part of your email signature is on the rise (see discussion here and here). But some can be taken differently than intended. For example: “Too often we underestimate the power of a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” Quotes like these can come across as a bit preachy by presuming readers are insensitive and complacent.

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div>TechConsumer News is a feature we started out of a hobby of tracking the latest happenings within the consumer related technology sphere. The goal is to provide a concise, compiled overview of the most intriguing stories from the last few days. Feel free to give us feedback or send us tips. If you like what you find, you can subscribe via email or RSS.

Here’s the latest in TechConsumer news:

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div>Sophos, an internet-security company, released numbers on the amount of spam sent per country between this past July and September. And the United States is responsible for about 30% of it (see chart below). Despite legislation such as the CAN-SPAM Act, the U.S. hasn’t been able to do much to stop spam. And spam is getting more complicated: fake e-cards, virus-infected PDF attachments, and worthless MP3 files or ringtons are the latest methods. In fact, according to anti-spam company MXSweep, nearly one in ten spam e-mails attach MP3 files or ringtones.

I guess I wouldn’t know much about this. I use Google’s gmail and rarely see any spam.

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div>My brother Tom noticed a difference when using Gmail yesterday. When he moused-over a certain email in his inbox, a popup-like box appeared with a preview of that email. It seemed pretty cool even if apparently not ready for prime time. Google pulled the plug on the new feature just minutes after he played around with it but not before he got a screenshot! See image below and click through for full screen version:

*Update* From the comments: “Sorry. False alarm. I just realized that this is a feature of “Better Gmail,” a firefox plugin I started using a few weeks ago. I must have right-clicked by accident on my laptop. Still, it’s a pretty cool feature for those who want it. Better Gmail also allows you to add your Google Reader onto the same page, if you want to.”

*Update 2* See this post over at Google Blogoscoped for screenshots of what’s being called Gmail 2.0.

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div>BigString is a company set on eliminating “email sender remorse” by allowing you as the email sender to control emails even after they’ve landed in the recipient’s inbox. I was intrigued both from a technical perspective (i.e., how does it work?) and from a sociological perspective (i.e., what does potentially needing this technology tell us about ourselves?). The company even hosts a weekly contest where it asks for your worst emails (sent to wrong person, reply all mistakes, email while drunk, etc.) and awards the most embarrassing ones with cash prizes. So, first off, here’s how it works:

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