Or at least according to a splashy front-page article I read in USA Today as I pass through LAX on Friday. Apparently a bunch of US companies have declared Zero Email Fridays to encourage people to talk to each other again, but also to get inboxes under control ... which leads to a second alleged trend: declaring "email bankruptcy" and deleting everything in your inbox.

An IDC wonk says it takes four minutes to refocus on your work after every time you check your email - which explains my lack of career progress since 1994.

And according to IDC figures, 39.5 billion person-to-person emails are sent each day worldwide, not counting spam. So, essentially, that's four minutes times 39.5 billion, which equals ... nobody getting any work done at all, anywhere

You can read the online version of USA Today's story here, complete with an unironic link for emailing it to your friends

In the American Airlines terminal, where I'm reading, there are a number of people on their notebooks, quite possibly spending their Friday morning email (for there are power plugs and ethernet ports for any economy passenger to get online). A couple are emailing on Treos or BlackBerries. Most though, are demonstrably not doing any Friday email. They're too busy txting ...