Are Em Dashes Overused?

Funny -- I never knew this punctuation was called an "em dash." It's like it's named after me! In a Slate article, Noreen Malone criticizes what she observes to be an egregious overuse of the em dash in writing nowadays. Malone thinks it makes for choppy sentences. I definitely think the em dash has its place, but like any seasoning, it is best used sparingly, reserved, much like the semicolon (which I am guilty of abusing), for special occasions.

I personally don't encounter a superfluous amount of em dashes in my reading, but I have read essays before that had too many of them. Every writer has his or her quirks -- these can be crutches or evidence of a unique style (i.e. David Foster Wallace's extreme footnotes [which are annoying]).