Email gets easier. (The Web Formerly @Work).(Pew Internet and American Life Project report)(www.nomoreaolcds.com)

I stand by my December column, in which I maintain that email threatens to overwhelm U.S. workers. But findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project claim that the majority of U.S. workers with email access--"work emailers" as the report refers to them--are handling their email load with relative ease. Of the nearly 2500 work emailers surveyed, 60 percent receive 10 or fewer messages on an average day; less than half (48 percent) report an increase in incoming mail over the past year. In fact, 65 percent describe their email load as not being a problem.

Those figures may come as a surprise. When I think of dealing with email, the word that typically springs to mind isn't easy, but it does have an e with double hockey sticks. I often receive 10 emails every couple of hours. According to Pew, I (and about 20 percent of work emailers) fall into the category of "power emailers." We're the ones that typically receive more than 30 emails per day, check our email obsessively, and then write about how the rest of the working world is e-swamped. Actually, power emailers appreciate email even more than standard users do, says the report, valuing its "impact on the substance of …