People used to be able to interrupt you at work only by phoning or walking into your office. Now they can do so by e-mail, instant messaging, mobile phones and BlackBerries or personal digital assistants.
This paper presents the results of a case study of a (perceived) problem of information overload from e-mail in a large firm. We argue that for CMCs to be effective there is a need to establish a ‘context’ in which the message can be interpreted.