The system known as Email Miles, uses Global Positioning System (GPS) technology 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.
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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.