Survey Shows Parents are Overwhelmed by their Inboxes, Yahoo Mail Offers a Solution

Summer is winding down to a close and kids are getting ready to head back to school. It’s a hectic time of year for busy parents and caregivers, but as school ramps up, so does the multitude of emails hitting their inboxes. Parents find themselves inundated with email after email related to school activities, extracurriculars, sports, events, and much, much more. What they need (besides more hours in a day) is an inbox designed with them in mind. 

To find out how parents and caregivers feel about their personal email, particularly as they brace for the back-to-school season, Yahoo partnered with Censuswide to survey over 2,000 parents and caregivers with school-aged children across the country, which revealed how parents are navigating often overflowing inboxes. 

‍Back-To-School Email Survey Results:

Parents’ personal inboxes are overwhelming:

• The average parent is receiving about four emails a day related to their children and their school and extracurricular activities, this adds up to about 20 emails a week, or over 80 emails a month.
• The average parent surveyed has over 2,000 unread emails in their inbox at any given time. Younger parents (aged 20–34) average nearly 2,800 unread emails. Just under half (48%) of them wish they could have an "out of office" on their personal email inboxes. 
• Almost a third (29%) of respondents find their personal email more stressful than their work email. 

Parents admit they have missed important details and events: 

• Details are slipping through the cracks and 6 out of 10 parents and caregivers (62%) admit to missing an important event or detail in their email inbox.
• Over half of parents and caregivers (56%) say they receive too many emails, and nearly one in four (22%) can never find the email they're looking for.

Overwhelming emails are taking a toll on parents: 

• Over half (52%) feel overwhelmed by their personal email inbox, with 49% agreeing that their personal email adds to their mental load as a parent.
• Over one third (37%) of parents agree that email interferes with quality family time.
• There is guilt associated with overlooked details and over 7 out of 10 parents and caregivers (71%) feel like bad parents when they miss important information about their children.

Reimagining the Inbox for an A+ Experience
‍Yahoo Mail is looking to help parents who are feeling overwhelmed by their inboxes by offering a better experience. Yahoo Mail has been reimagining the inbox with parents and caregivers in mind - a group that makes up *half of Yahoo Mail users - with its most significant desktop experience update in nearly a decade. A priority inbox highlights not-to-miss emails, and new AI-powered features can help parents stay organized and get more done by summarizing important messages, highlighting crucial need-to-know information, and providing easy ways to take action and complete tasks.

For example, a busy parent or caregiver can now open up an email to find a message summarized into simple bullets including any responses needed, then simply add any events or to-dos from that email, which are automatically highlighted, to a calendar of their choice with just the click of a button. What may have taken 10 minutes to read and schedule can take just a minute, saving hours each week. And the best part, there is no need to create a new email address, but rather use Yahoo to manage existing email accounts and enjoy all of these new features while sending and receiving emails - no matter the provider - in one spot.  

Learn more about Yahoo Mail here.

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About Yahoo:
Yahoo serves as a trusted guide for hundreds of millions of people globally, helping them achieve their goals online through our portfolio of iconic products. For advertisers, Yahoo Advertising offers omnichannel solutions and powerful data to engage with our brands and deliver results. To learn more about Yahoo, please visit yahooinc.com.

Contact: press@yahooinc.com

Methodology: The research was conducted by the independent market research consultancy, Censuswide. The survey comprised 2,004 parents with school-aged children who use email in the U.S., and ran online between 06/07/24 and 06/10/24. Censuswide employs members of the Market Research Society, which is based on the ESOMAR principles.

*MRI-Simmons, 2024 Winter Study, Millennial Parents

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