As the alligator is to evolution, email is to the internet. We have long since dispensed with dial-up modems and Geocities, but inboxes have been pinging with monotonous regularity since at least the days of New Kids on the Block.

Email is also at the centre of today’s “always-on” work culture, where the whims of bosses follow many of us from the dinner table to the toilet and even to bed. The movement for the right to disconnect is striking back, but we are also our own worst enemies when it comes to checking messages. Work-culture expert Emma Russell and her colleagues report on their research project at a major UK charity, and explain how employers and workers can make inboxes more bearable.

We put break-up songs under the spotlight to explain why Byron would have felt a kinship with everyone from Adele to Jacques Brel. And we look at the international silence over the imprisonment of former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and why it’s a major concern.

If you like what you read on The Conversation, we’d love you to consider donating to us. Whether by single donation or monthly gift, it helps us to ensure that unbiased expert knowledge reaches the widest audience possible.

Steven Vass

Business + Economy Editor

Open all hours. Mavo

Ping, read, reply, repeat: how to break bad email habits at work

Emma Russell, University of Sussex; Kevin Daniels, University of East Anglia; Marc Fullman, University of Sussex; Tom Jackson, Loughborough University

A research team reports on its one-year project to improve the email habits of a large UK charity.

Lord Byron was the original breakup artist. National Portrait Gallery, London

Break up songs owe a lot to the love lorn lyrics of the Romantics

Anthony Howe, Birmingham City University

From Jaques Brel to Adele, those who sing of lost love owe a lot to the lyrics of the Romantics.

Imprisoned: ousted Myanmar leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Dan Kitwood/ PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo

Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar’s democracy figurehead could face life imprisonment in ‘politically motivated’ prosecution

Anna B. Plunkett, King's College London

Myanmar’s democracy figurehead faces up to 100 years in prison.

Politics + Society

Health + Medicine

Science + Technology

Environment + Energy

  • We should ban all new oil and gas fields

    David Waltham, Royal Holloway University of London

    If we want to limit global warming to below 2°C, most of our untapped fossil fuel reserves need to be kept in the ground.

  • Why Shell pulled out of the Cambo oilfield

    Gavin Bridge, Durham University; Gisa Weszkalnys, London School of Economics and Political Science; Tiago Teixeira, Durham University

    Shell’s withdrawal highlights unresolved tensions on the road to net zero.

 

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