Understanding email communication patterns

It has been almost two decades since the beginning of the web. This means that the web is no longer just a technology of the present, but also, a record of our past. Email, one of the original forms of social media, is even older than the web and contains a detailed description of our personal and professional history. This thesis explores the world of email communication by introducing Immersion, a tool build for the purposes to analyze and visualize the information hidden behind the digital traces of email activity, to help us reflect on our actions, learn something new, quantify it, and hopefully make us react and change our behavior. In closing, I look over the email overload problem and work-life balance trends by quantifying general email usage using a large real-world email dataset.

Department dc:contributor.department

Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Smilkov, Daniel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• César A. Hidalgo.

• Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91421

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/91421