{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "id": "email-checking-frequency-stress-boundary-2015",
  "canonical_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/evidence/email-checking-frequency-stress-boundary-2015/",
  "json_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/evidence/email-checking-frequency-stress-boundary-2015/index.json",
  "decision": "propose-protocol",
  "decision_label": "Protocol candidate",
  "reviewed_at": "2026-09-11",
  "reviewed_by": "Brali Evidence Reviewer",
  "source": {
    "title": "Checking email less frequently reduces stress",
    "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.005",
    "type": "primary-study",
    "doi": "10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.005",
    "citation_text": "Kushlev K, Dunn EW. Comput Hum Behav. 2015;43:220-228.",
    "study_design": "Two-week within-subject experimental field study with randomized condition order. Each participant completed a limited-email week and an unlimited-email week.",
    "population": "124 adult email users participating in a field experiment over two weeks.",
    "intervention_or_exposure": "During the limited condition participants were instructed to check email only three times per day and keep mail software closed otherwise; during the unlimited condition they were instructed to check as often as possible.",
    "outcomes": [
      "Daily perceived stress",
      "Tension during an important activity",
      "Self-reported email-checking frequency",
      "Exploratory wellbeing, mindfulness, productivity, sleep and social outcomes"
    ]
  },
  "supported_claim": "When role expectations allow it, checking email less frequently than one's normal pattern can reduce daily stress. A practical Brali implementation is to use deliberate email windows while keeping a separate route for genuinely urgent work. The study supports less-frequent checking, not three checks per day as an optimized rule.",
  "unsupported_or_overstated_claims": [
    "Three email checks per day is the optimal schedule.",
    "Less-frequent email checking directly causes higher productivity, better sleep, more meaning, or greater social connectedness.",
    "Every occupation can safely close email between windows.",
    "Inbox Zero or a particular email-processing method was tested.",
    "The exact self-reported number of daily checks can be treated as objectively measured behavior."
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "Checking frequency was self-reported rather than objectively logged.",
    "The study explored a broad set of outcomes, increasing the chance of isolated significant results.",
    "Direct causal evidence was strongest for stress; broader wellbeing links were indirect correlational analyses through stress.",
    "There was no passive measurement-only control condition.",
    "The experiment did not control the response expectations imposed by participants' workplaces and contacts."
  ],
  "target_hack_ids": [
    "deliberate-email-checking-windows"
  ],
  "target_protocol_ids": [
    "brali:deliberate-email-checking-windows"
  ],
  "risk_flags": [],
  "notes": "Publish as a work-system experiment with explicit operational exceptions. Measure stress and missed obligations, not inbox aesthetics or unsupported productivity claims."
}