Unsolicited Emails and Spam: An Unsustainable Burden for Academics

Abstract

Academics, including researchers and scholars, might receive undesired/unsolicited emails, including spam. This volume might differ depending on whether they use a web-based or institutional email, since filters for each may differ. In the author's experience, most unsolicited emails have mainly been related to publishing, such as requests for submissions to lesser-known or academically suspect journals, and have become the norm. In addition, in the COVID-19 pandemic era (2020–2023), unsolicited emails related to the virus or the pandemic were received, as were some emails related to the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022–2024. To gain an appreciation of the daily and monthly volumes of emails received by the author in 2018–2024, emails were stored in email folders over these 7 years on a monthly basis. A total of 130,941 unsolicited emails (sensu lato) were received in this 7-year period (14,514; 17,438; 15,668; 20,458; 19,845; 21,321; 21,697 in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively). The volume per month for each of these 7 years was 1613, 1938, 1741, 2273, 2205, 2369, and 2411 while the daily volume was 54, 64, 58, 75, 73, 79, and 80, respectively. Practical solutions are needed for academics to manage such unsustainable volumes of unsolicited emails. This brief assessment has limitations.