Is Less email more?

The Journal (publicly available piece) had an article today on a re-emerging trend - limiting employee access to email on Fridays and weekends:

A growing number of employers, including U.S. Cellular, Deloitte & Touche and Intel, are imposing or trying out "no email" Fridays or weekends. While the bans typically allow emailing clients and customers or responding to urgent matters, the normal flow of routine internal email is halted. Violators are hit with token fines, or just called out by the boss.

The limits aim to encourage more face-to-face and phone contact with customers and co-workers, raise productivity or just give employees a reprieve from the ever-rising email tide. Emails sent by individual corporate users are projected to increase 27% this year, to an average of 47 a day, up from 37 in 2006, says Radicati Group, a Palo Alto, Calif., research and consulting firm. And one-third of users feel stressed by heavy email volume, according to a 2007 study of 177 people by the University of Glasgow and Paisley University in Scotland. Many check email as often as 30 to 40 times an hour, the study showed.

Its an old new idea again.  Back in 1996, I was interviewed by the BBC or The Guardian (can't remember, nor can I for the life of me find the original story online - if any one can, please forward) about CA's policy of shutting down email for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon to boost productivity and interpersonal contact.  Here's the only reference I could find.

From what I remember, and remember this is '96 so email was still relatively new, relatively... it was a good policy while it lasted.  It did promote more face to face meetings and in person social networking... but as the business became more reliant on email for communication with customers and partners (although one could make the argument that CA was never reliant on partners let alone customers -- Sorry Charlie) the business retired the policy and was never heard of again. 

I'd say that it was one of the smarter things Charles Wang did, although I don't think there was any altruism behind the decision. It was purely to drive the business - no reprieve from the email tide - at that point email was more a Great Lake than an ocean. So the question is, is less email more?  I for one think so. I spend so much time (calculate about 20 minutes per email,  reviewing, thinking about and answering a given message that it feels like I am paid to answer email at times -- at any one time I have about 130 unread messages) that I would love to be able to get away from it.. .do more phone and in person conversations.

What say you?