Why do we often feel (techno) stressed by the use of ICT?

The massive introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs), due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and, therefore, to the increase in teleworking , has had a great impact on workers at different levels (personal, organizational and professional).

According to Eurostat, in 2021, a greater number of people began working from home following the introduction of social distancing measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, 12% of employed people aged 20 to 64 in the European Union (EU) regularly worked from home, whereas this percentage had remained constant at around 5 or 6% over the previous decade. In contrast, teleworking was less common in the eastern and southern regions of the EU, with less than 5% of people working from home in 2020.

But if ICTs were designed to give us more power, autonomy, and flexibility, why do we often feel (techno)stressed by these technologies? Why does using email or the internet sometimes cause discomfort, anxiety, and physical distress?

While it is undeniable that the use of technology has positive aspects, its effects on the mental health of working people should not be overlooked.

Specifically, considering the international qualitative and quantitative research related to this impact and covering from 2019 to 2022, we can see that there is a decrease in pain, fatigue and stress levels, an increase in productivity and life satisfaction, an increase in organizational performance, better social and professional relationships, improvement in learning and personal development, improvement in the level of work motivation, less conflict between work and home, greater job commitment, greater job performance, lower levels of time pressure, and lower levels of conflict between work and family.

On the other hand, unfortunately, research also generally shows a lower level of subjective well-being, a higher level of stress, an increase in conflicts within the organization, a high level of psychological stress, and low psychological well-being.

What is technostress?

According to Craig Brod (1984), technostress , or stress caused by technology, is defined as the negative psychological impact of technology on people. He defines it as "an emerging psychological disorder induced by an individual's inability to adapt effectively to new technologies."

If we focus on the work environment, Salanova et al. (2013) proposed a definition of the experience of technostress at work as a "negative psychological state associated with the use or threat of use of ICT in the future. This experience is related to feelings of anxiety, mental fatigue, skepticism and ineffectiveness."

Most of the proposed definitions usually include psychological, physical or behavioral stress responses to technostressors.

Tarafdar et al. (2010), using the results of a survey of ICT end users, discovered that the stressors associated with technostress encompass five conditions that end users face as a result of their use of ICT in their organizations.

1. Techno-overload describes situations in which ICTs force users to work faster and for longer.
2. Technoinvasion describes the invasive effect of ICTs in creating situations where users can be located at any time, employees feel the need to be constantly connected, and there is a blurring of the lines between work and personal contexts.
3. Technocomplexity describes cases in which the complexity associated with ICTs makes users feel inadequate in terms of their skills and forces them to dedicate time and effort to learning and understanding various aspects of ICTs.
4. Techno-insecurity is associated with situations in which users feel threatened by the possibility of losing their jobs due to automation resulting from new ICTs or in favor of people who understand them better.
5. Techno-uncertainty refers to contexts in which the continuous changes and updates of ICTs worry users and create uncertainty because they are constantly concerned about learning and training on new ICTs.

How does technostress affect us?

Regarding the psychological effects related to technostress, some studies have identified strains that represent individual responses to technological stressors. Nisafani et al. (2020) classify strains into two categories: emotional strain and physical strain .

Emotional stress represents the psychological state of working people. One example of emotional stress is emotional exhaustion, a state in which a person feels emotionally overwhelmed, irritable, and fatigued. Other stressors include harmful emotions, anger, and anxiety. Another type of stress is job burnout, described as "the depletion of the emotional and mental energy needed to meet the demands of work obligations."

Physical strain captures the physical state of working people, such as eye strain and high cortisol levels; in fact, previous studies have shown that cortisol levels increase dramatically when people are subjected to technostress.

In addition to the psychological effects, technostress also has repercussions at the workplace level .

In fact, according to a recent study of the most current knowledge about technostress, it was discovered that technostress has repercussions on personal and organizational issues.

The most discussed impacts of technostress are productivity and job satisfaction.

Regarding productivity, Hung et al. (2015) use the law of diminishing returns. That is, while the use of technology could increase productivity up to a certain point, extreme use of technology could produce an adverse effect.

Furthermore, since job satisfaction is defined as an emotional reaction to work resulting from an evaluation of the work experience, high levels of technostress lead to decreased job satisfaction among employees. Moreover, technostress hinders employee engagement with an organization and increases resistance to using new technology.

Ways to manage technostress

To cope with the consequences of technostress, individuals employ various coping strategies. These can be classified as problem-focused, emotion-focused, and dysfunctional coping strategies.

To reduce work-related technostress, several studies address the support of others, which appears to be a promising problem-focused coping strategy .

Emotion-focused coping strategies commonly researched for reducing technostress include venting and ICT distancing. Similar to ICT distancing, digital detox behaviors can help reduce the overload resulting from work-related ICT use when working remotely, as demonstrated by research on the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Regarding dysfunctional coping strategies , these include behavioral and mental disengagement, denial, venting, and substance abuse. These coping strategies may provide short-term relief, but they are often dysfunctional in the long term and can even be harmful to the individual.

Interestingly, employed people seem to employ various coping strategies when they experience increased technostress.

People who dealt with technostress in different ways also rated their health and work capacity better and reported having less difficulty mentally disconnecting from work in their free time than those who only used a limited number of coping strategies.

While Saxena and Lamest (2018) were surprised by the absence of team coping strategies in their case study, Rohwer et al. (2022) demonstrate that coping strategies are typically explored at the individual level. Although some studies identified peer social support as an important resource for coping with technostress, this was investigated at the individual level.

In conclusion, although technostress is a phenomenon that is destined to increase due to the growth of technology and especially teleworking, unfortunately, there is still not much awareness about it at both the individual and organizational levels.

Article provided by Empower . Authorship Clara De Vincenzi, Bruna Ferrara and Diletta Porcheddu.