Column: Too many emails? Tame your inbox by thinking like a monkey

"Email is governed by the rules of dominance hierarchy, which is central to the games we social primates are wired to play... Humans also put hierarchy at the heart of much of what we do, whether at home, at work or online."

"Some people were trying to head off the deluge with bluntness... readers instinctively picked up on the status imbalance inherent in these tactics... they were not so high in the pecking order that they could afford to put up an in-your-face autoreply or ignore email requests."

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