A new system that uses Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to calculate the number of miles an email has 'travelled' before reaching an inbox has been developed.
The system known as Email Miles, uses GPS and internet tracking to determine where a message was sent and where it was received.
It then calculates the total distance between the two and displays it on the screen alongside a map.
Inventor Jonah Brucker-Cohen, a design lecturer, said he hoped that it would remind people how quickly they can communicate in a digital world, The Times reported.
The system also shows how indirect the route of many emails can be.
An email sent from New York to Dakar, in Senegal demonstrates how the system works. It first travelled 790 miles (1,271 km) to a server in Chicago, Illinois, and then went 2,163 miles (3,481 km) to Mountain View, California; 1,699 miles (2,734 km) to Dallas, Texas; 4,745 miles (7,636 km) to London; and finally 2,718 miles (4,374 km) to its destination -- some 12,115 miles (19,497 km) in all.
Brucker-Cohen said the system does all of its time and distance calculations using the internet and a coordinate mapping system.
"When all of the mileage amounts are tallied, it adds them all and provides the user with a map, the countries, continents and miles the email travelled," Brucker-Cohen said.