When I'm at school, I'm on a resnet, and therefore connected 24/7. Because I was an IT major working on many group projects at once, I had people contacting me ALL the time. I kept my email checking every 10 minutes, with a notify when I got new mail.
Why did I just not have them call me? Because most of the stuff they were contacting me for was so damn stupid (not being able to read things off of disks, stuff they should have known from class, etc) that I didn't want to have to waste my time talking about it. Its much easier to just dash off an email - plus its a lot less confrontational - I can write very nicely that someone needs to improve their stuff, whereas if I had to talk to them, I'd probably be so damn angry that their skills are so sub-par and are depending on me to do the work that it wouldn't turn out pretty.
I went on a cruise once, I resisted the urge to check my email from an internet cafe in grand cayman. When I'm not in school, I don't get that much email. Only my very closest friends have my private addy - and they know better than to forward things to me
