For better or for worse, a surprising amount of college life happens inside our email inboxes. Class announcements, internship opportunities, club logistics, campus events, financial aid reminders, housing updates, the list goes on — if something matters, it’s probably arriving by email. It’s become the quintessential infrastructure of our academic lives. Since so much depends on it, the question of how often we check our email becomes a matter of responsibility, opportunity and identity; it says something about the kind of students we want to be.
Studies suggest that most of us are already constantly checking. Zero Bounce reports that 93% of people check their email every day, and 42% check three to five times daily. Another study from Inbox Zero found that the average professional spends 28% of the workweek reading and responding to emails (about 2.6 hours a day). If that’s the norm in the workplace, it’s no surprise that college students should stay engaged with it.
However, norms don’t answer the real questions: How often should we be checking? What do we owe the people who email us? How do we balance staying informed with staying sane?
I’m proud to admit that I check my email multiple times a day, most often first thing in the morning. I have notification alerts set up on my phone and laptop, so I never miss anything important, like a professor’s communication, work or deadlines. But I don’t think this makes me obsessive, as some might say. It makes me organized and functional. In a world where email is the primary mode of communication, ignoring your inbox is like ignoring the packages piling up on your front porch — you can’t climb over it forever.
A reasonable baseline for college students is checking emails at least once a day, but ideally twice: once in the morning to see what’s coming, and once in the evening to make sure nothing urgent slipped by. This rhythm keeps you informed without letting email dominate your day. Despite the dramatic sighs people make when they talk about “catching up on emails,” the task doesn’t have to be painful; most inbox maintenance can be done in under five minutes.
The real challenge is the mindset and crafting a good balance. Check too infrequently, and you risk missing deadlines, opportunities or other time-sensitive messages. It also creates unnecessary stress for yourself when you let unread emails pile up. But check too often, and you fall into a different trap of a constant distraction and the feeling that every notification demands your immediate attention.
Having a system helps and can be simple, like mine: checking twice a day, starring important information and a rule that if something takes less than a minute to respond to, I do it immediately. There isn’t a need for elaborate folder hierarchies or color-coded labels, just a few habits that keep your inbox from becoming a sense of dread.
But there’s another question that’s becoming increasingly prevalent in our changing society. In the age of AI, what does it mean to communicate responsibly? Is it unethical to use AI to write and/or respond to emails?
It can be unethical. Email is one of the few remaining spaces outside face-to-face conversation where we can communicate directly without AI intervention. If you feel the need to rely on AI to write basic messages, what else are you outsourcing? AI isn’t a cure-all; it can’t read your mind or solve all of your problems. Research has shown that using AI tends to make people less productive overall because they fall into an over-reliance trap. By the time you’ve managed to shape a coherent message from the chatbot, you’ve spent more time than if you’d just written it yourself. If email is part of how we learn to advocate for ourselves, build connections and otherwise navigate professional life, handing that over to a machine feels like handing over a piece of our agency.
Ultimately, checking your email is a small but incredibly meaningful practice of responsibility. It helps you respect other people’s time, stay connected to your community and manage your own stress before it takes over. In our world, communication is constant, and learning to manage your inbox is like learning to manage your life.
Catherine A. Payleitner, FCRH ’28, is a political science and journalism double major from Chicago, Illinois.
