I think our norms around email could be based to some extent on very old norms from ancient tribal culture—there you had to respond, and not just weeks later, if someone asked you about something. Therefore one would have to target one of the things you mentioned (length, cost, permancence).
What if we had an email-tax, thereby changing the cost of the form? (Not so easy to implement in practice, of course). That would not change the norms per se but it would reduce the burden of the norms that result from a mismatch between the evolutionary source of the norms and the current technical environment. What email-tax level would lead to the highest welfare (happiness, productivity) could be an empirical question then (and I think the optimal tax would be higher than zero).
I think our norms around email could be based to some extent on very old norms from ancient tribal culture—there you had to respond, and not just weeks later, if someone asked you about something. Therefore one would have to target one of the things you mentioned (length, cost, permancence).
What if we had an email-tax, thereby changing the cost of the form? (Not so easy to implement in practice, of course). That would not change the norms per se but it would reduce the burden of the norms that result from a mismatch between the evolutionary source of the norms and the current technical environment. What email-tax level would lead to the highest welfare (happiness, productivity) could be an empirical question then (and I think the optimal tax would be higher than zero).