Culture file: You’ve Got Mail — But Take Your Time

Stop apologizing for not responding to that e-mail right away, says Melissa Dahl in New York magazine. Many messages require no sense of urgency, and it should be on the sender, she writes, to make clear by when a response is needed: “Part of the problem with email, as Joe Pinkser recently pointed out in The Atlantic, is that it can feel like you’re supposed to answer immediately.” According to one study, “people tend to respond to an e-mail notification within six seconds. But how many people who email you are truly expecting an instant reply?” Dahl’s request: “When sending email, start including a line that clearly tells the recipient when (if ?) you need a reply.”