e-mail bankruptcy
n.— «Dr. Turkle said that in her research on people’s relationship with computation, she hears more and more about a fantasy she calls “e-mail bankruptcy,” a fantasy that she sometimes shares. “In my case,” she said, “when I feel that “doing my e-mail’ is taking me away from the people and the work that I care about, I might declare bankruptcy.” The senders of the thousand or so pieces of e-mail in her In basket would receive an automatic message saying something like: “Thank you for your message. Unfortunately, my unread mail has become too numerous for me to process and much of it may by now be out of date. I will not be replying to any of my current messages. If you still need to contact me, please send a new message.”» —“In Lost E-Mail, a Dividend” by Constance Rosenblum New York Times Feb. 14, 2002. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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