68% of adults plan to check email over the holidays

Americans may check their work email as much as they check the turkey

Since more people take their work wherever they go, namely in the form of a smartphone, the holidays can seem like less of a retreat from work than it is an absence of being in the office -- but at least any unanswered emails can be blamed on family without too much guilt.

The phonetically challenging email and content management company, Xobni, revealed the results of their annual online survey regarding email behavior Tuesday, and it shows that working Americans will be checking more than their turkeys over the holidays.

The San Francisco-based company surveyed 2,810 adults and saw that 79% of working adults have received business emails on the holidays and 68% plan on checking their company inbox between family obligations.

These results are a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion because it all depends on the level of engagement and distraction that this causes. If checking your emails is just a matter of flagging and trashing items so that it isn't shear chaos when you return to the office on Monday then I say, "Go for it!" If checking your emails involves novel-length replies and having to excuse yourself every twenty minutes to make follow-up calls then I'm betting your family will never let you hear the end of it.

In fact, the survey revealed that more than one in four (27%) people would be checking their email throughout the day. And 19% of people said that they were relived or "thankful" for the distraction from the hectic pace and interaction expected during the holidays -- I quite possibly could be in this category, but I'll never tell.

One suggestion for those out there that get distracted by badges, dings and other notifications that phones are so good at keeping you connected -- try changing some of those features just for the holidays. I know it sounds crazy and many of you will likely forget to turn them back on (or even how to) but it might be worth it. You can even make an alarm that goes off first thing Monday, telling you to revert you badges, whistles and sirens to go off as normal once the holidays have ceased.

One big gender shift that is taking place is that compared to last year, men are checking email less over the holidays (58% in 2011 vs 67% in 2010.) This result is despite the fact that the percentage of people expecting to receive work-related email stayed the same (79%) year-over-year. Year-over-year, the percentage of women expecting to check their email remained relatively unchanged (50% in 2010 and 51% in 2011.)

Another point of interest in the holiday email behaviors expect this year is that, while East and West Coasters are often expected to lead the charge in technology dependance, the Southern region came out as the most interested in checking their email with 59% admitting their plans to peruse the inbox (compared to the 51% in the West and 54% in the East.)

The ability to completely leave work in the office may be a thing of the past, but maybe we can all make a promise that, as thankful as we are for our Androids and iPhones, we can leave them off the Thanksgiving table and wait to update Twitter until the dishes are done.

Image Source -- Visualphotos.com