Globally, we send 37 billion messages a day.

But do we use e-mail too much? Have you, for example, sent an e-mail when perhaps you should have made a phone call?

Or have you written an e-mail that has been completely misconstrued by a friend or colleague, causing friction or an argument?

With the ability to e-mail from PDAs and mobile phones, it has never been more important to get the message you are trying to write right.

Tom Herbst, from Palm One computer company, says the problems people have with e-mail vary.

"The Germans are particularly concerned about tone and use of language in their e-mail. A lot of them get very aggravated if people use poor language.

"60% of Italians surveyed have to chase a response to their e-mail. And the French get particularly irate about being copied."

Lost in translation?

As well as sloppiness, for some of us e-mail is our favourite way of telling lies.

Psychologist Peter Collett says: "It's certainly true that technology gets us off the hook.

"If you wanted to lie to me, the last thing you'd do is actually meet me face to face. You probably woudn't even do it over the telephone.

"You're much more likely to do it by e-mail.

"This is because all the cues of deception are more likely to appear face to face and on the telephone, where you can hear the vocal indicators - those cues to lying - which are toally absent, or almost entirely absent, in the case of e-mail."

According to Palm One, there are "seven deadly sins" of e-mail nettiquete:

• Ignoring e-mails.
• Denying receipt of emails you have received because you have not had a chance to respond.
• Waffling: writing verbose e-mails without getting to the point.
• Blitzing: sending out e-mails to people who do not actually need to read them.
• Tactlessness. Using the wrong style and tone in your e-mail can cause confrontation.
• Presuming that, just because you have sent someone an e-mail, they are going to read it.
• Sloppiness and bad use of language.

But there are ways to avoid falling into bad habits.

As Peter Collett says, ignoring e-mails can be remedied by a variety of techniques built into the technology. This allows us to indicate to people that we are not simply ignoring their overtures, we are in fact busy doing other things.

For example, we can make a rule that we respond to e-mails within 24 hours, or we can alert people to the fact that we are out of the office.

With regard to blitzing, we can make sure only to copy in people who are absolutely relevant to that communication.

Otherwise, all that pent up tension can result in e-mail rage - something none of us wants.

So, the next time you create a new message, you might want to take a moment and go for a slightly more traditional approach.

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