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There's the fax, voice mail, and e-mail. Then there's the telephone, the cell phone, the car phone,and the pager.

A recent study found that workers receive an astonishing number of messages from computerized devices. Employees who were surveyed received an average of 190 messages each day. Most of the messages require some form of response. Forty percent of the workers said they are interrupted by incoming messages six or more times an hour.
Economist Paula Rayman, director of the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute, said that people are frustrated because they are working longer hours to handle all the repuests for information and communication. "People are treated like they are machines that are on all the time," she said.
Many experts believe that the growth of information technology is making people work more efficiently. But not everybody agrees that it has a positive effect on productivity. New technology eliminates some of the old, voring tasks and gives many more people access to data. But workers need to learn to manage the flow of information. For example,they need to be strict about deleting unnecessary telephone messages and moving unimportant e-mail straight to the trash.
Employees also need strategies to deal with interruptions. As Rayman points out, "If you are constantly bombarded with messages, you never get your real work done.