Common features of short-time dynamics of e-mail communication in work groups

Abstract

A statistical analysis of temporal features of e-mail communications is carried out for groups of people working in office environments. The analysis is aimed at characterizing interactive behavior on the time scale of daily work tasks. The analysis reveals characteristic features in the distribution of communication time intervals. Comparison of results for two different organizations identifies the existence of common features which could be used to characterize such systems in general. A possible interpretation is proposed based on a model of human task handling with priority.