This shocking statistic may make you pause when banging out your next email: the average person apparently produces SIX newspapers’ worth of information each and every day. To put that into perspective, in 1986 we produced just two and a half pages a day.

According to Dr Martin Hilbert and his team at the University of southern California, we’re also bombarded with enough data everyday to fill 174 newspapers.

It comes as no surprise to learn that we all receive large quantities of news through a variety of sources. The social media boom, 24-hour television and our addiction to mobile phones means that we can now access up-to-the-minute information wherever and whenever we want it. What’s more shocking is that we’re personally adding to the constant supply of data – most of us without even realising it.

Perhaps it’s time to think about the quality of the information that we produce every day. If we’re going to contribute, it may as well be meaningful. In the world of PR, it’s especially important to consider whether the messages that you’re disseminating are cogent, relevant and interesting – and this is something that could be applied elsewhere, in everyday life. Think of it this way: if you are going to send out six newspapers’ worth of information each day, do us a favour and make it six broadsheets, rather than six red tops.

The team at Peppermint were recently held (highly reluctant) hostages to an email-free couple of days, when our host’s central machine crashed. After an initial bout of panic and a barrage of anguished calls to our technical support team, we found ourselves feeling calmly liberated.

The amount of time saved during our two days on the outskirts of cyberspace was quite simply astonishing. Without a constant influx of messages we had a hugely expanded space in which to think, plan and talk. Much like mindless ‘interactive’ games that leave kids slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, being glued to a computer screen is the least conducive environment for creativity and strategic thinking.

The fact is that e-mail can be brilliant. Those long hours standing over a noisy fax machine that consistently chewed up copy weren’t exactly halcyon days. But I do resent the way email eats up our time with its endless, all too often pointless messages invading our workspace.

Now our email is fully back up and running and I’m once again confronted with a vast assortment of time-wasting rubbish, I’m rather missing our enforced break. It felt a little like the office equivalent of booking into a Buddhist retreat. So I for one am lobbying for email-free Fridays at Peppermint….now I just need to win over everyone else out there.