Having unleashed the information revolution, the world's largest technology companies are helping to fix one of its least desirable side-effects: information pollution.

Aware that many are drowning in a sea of digital communications, Microsoft, Google, Intel and IBM - among others - are co-operating to help people better manage the daily barrage of messages that they receive by computer or mobile phone.

A non-profit group they have set up - the Information Overload Research Group (IORG) - will help to research and publicise the problem, advise on best practice and help create better solutions to the 'digital distraction' that costs the US economy $650 billion a year in 'lost productivity', according to one estimate.

An internal study by Intel suggested that employees who were encouraged to limit the number of 'digital interruptions' they dealt with were more productive as a result. Google, meanwhile, has let its workers try a service called 'E-mail Addict' which cuts them off from their inboxes for 15 minutes.

John Tang, a researcher at IBM who is a member of the new group, said that large companies have long sought ways to prevent tools that were introduced to improve productivity from becoming a distraction. "There's a competitive advantage in figuring out how to address this problem," he told The New York Times.

Each day the average information worker checks his e-mail more than 50 times and visits more than 40 websites, according to RescueTime, a company that analyses computer use. "We are hunter-gatherers at the core," said Tony Wright, chief executive of RescueTime. "We open e-mail and hit 'send and receive' to see if something interesting has come in."

Already in Silicon Valley, a new language has sprung up around so-called 'information overload'. 'E-mail apnea', coined by the consumer trends author Linda Stone, refers to the habit of unconsciously holding one's breath when opening an inbox and being struck by the sheer volume of mail it contains.

The problem of getting so far behind in replying to e-mail that the only solution is for a person to delete all their old messages and start afresh with what is current has meanwhile been called 'e-mail bankruptcy'.

It is not just the technology itself that contributes to copious quantities of messages, however, but poor judgment on the part of some users, according to researchers. The injudicious use of the reply all button on e-mails, for instance, is widespread, they say.

Rebecca Jennings, an analyst at Forrester, said that some companies were beginning to address the problem of inbox clutter by using so-called "web 2.0" technologies which allowed workers involved in joint projects to create and share documents online. Colleagues could then access them when it suited.

"With e-mail, there's a tendency to 'cc' everyone, because you can, whereas what workers should be doing is taking two minutes to think: who really needs this?" she said. "If I had to photocopy this document, who would I physically walk around the office and give it to?"

Google's E-mail Addict allows users to click on a "take a break" button, which turns the screen grey and displays a message which reads: "Take a walk, get some real work done, or have a snack. We'll be back in 15 minutes!"

Another experiment at Intel was called 'zero e-mail Fridays', which encouraged workers to use face-to-face communication where possible. Sixty per cent of those who trialled the program recommended it for wider use across the company, Intel said.

The IORG, which also counts Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, Stanford University, and the University of California, among its members, will have its inaugural meeting in New York next month.

* Cisco Systems, the networking equipment company, is predicting a six-fold increase in internet traffic between 2007 and 2012, largely as a result of the burgeoning popularity of video on sites such as YouTube.

According to Cisco, online video, which accounted for 5 per cent of traffic in 2005 will represent 30 per cent of all information transferred via the internet by the end of this year, and 50 per cent by 2012.

The current volume of internet traffic each month - in terms of data sent - is seven exabytes, about the equivalent of two billion DVDs. That will grow to 44 exabytes a month by 2012, a study by Cisco suggests.

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