Managing technostress.

Don't let the gizmos get to you. In the future that is now, we trundle off to workplaces where we find a bevy of technological marvels - FAX machines, voice mail, e-mail, Web sites, and so on - awaiting our commands. Their creators told us that these machines - their brainchildren - would enhance our lives. If that's the case, why are so many of us suffering breakdowns or crashes on our journeys along the much-touted Information Superhighway?

Consider the following:

* Item: A recent report in Information Week claims that job burnout is at an all-time high. IS managers and operators head the list of burnout candidates.

* Item: A study presented at the Fifth International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction cast computer slowdowns and breakdowns as leading contributions to employee stress.

* Item: In a study of government employees conducted by researchers at Carleton University and the University of Western Ontario, most of the workers surveyed cited the demands placed on them via e-mail as their greatest source of stress.

* Item: In last year's Reuters Business Information Survey of managers in five countries, two thirds reported that information overload led to increased tension with colleagues and diminished job satisfaction. One third of the managers cited information overload as the cause of their own ill health.

* Item: Estimates put the annual price tag of stress-related ailments for U.S. corporations at $300 billion and rising.