Levels Of Technostress Research Articles

Does personal social media usage affect efficiency and well-being?

Personal social media usage is pervasive in both personal and professional lives. Practitioner articles and news stories have commented on the addicting and distracting nature of social media. Previous empirical research has established the negative effects of distractions on primary tasks. To date, little research has looked at the potentially distracting nature of social media and the negative effects that can arise from usage. This research addresses this gap by investigating the effects of personal social media usage on task performance. To extend this research, I also examined the effects that the personal social media usage has on individuals’ technostress and happiness levels. I tested these effects by creating a classroom task environment and measuring subjects’ usage of social media and their task performance. From this, it was found that higher amounts of personal social media usage led to lower performance on the task, as well as higher levels of technostress and lower happiness. These results are consistent across different levels of attentional control and multitasking computer self-efficacy. These results suggest that the personal usage of social media during professional (vs. personal or play) times can lead to negative consequences and is worthy of further study.

Validating the Technostress Instrument using a Sample of Chinese Knowledge Workers

ABSTRACT Today, the phenomenon of technostress is both pervasive and global. Nevertheless, research efforts, especially empirical and cross culture studies, in this domain have been very limited. In addition, lack of consistency in the technostress measure found in existing literature made it difficult to build a unified body of knowledge of technostress. Using a sample of 221 Chinese knowledge workers, this study cross-validated and refined the technostress measure developed by Tarafdar et al. (2007). It was found that the instrument offered high validity and reliability after some respecification in the Chinese context. Technostress experienced by Chinese knowledge workers was investigated and compared to that of US workers. The influence of individual and organizational characteristics on technostress was also examined. INTRODUCTION As an integral part of today's work environment, information technology has become an important contributor to work-related stress. The IS research community has long acknowledged the dual nature of ICTs (e.g. Thatcher & Perrewe, 2002; Brillhart, 2004; Ayyagari et al., 2011). While significant productivity gains, organizational effectiveness, and innovation have been achieved via the use of ICTs, their negative impacts on employees and organizations should not be overlooked. ICT-triggered disruptions in technologies, business processes, employee roles and responsibilities, and organizational culture can be significant sources of stress for today's workforce. Technostress is defined as any negative effect on human attitudes, thoughts, behavior, and psychology that was direct or indirect results from technology use (Weil & Rosen, 1990). Its adverse effects on employees range from behavioral outcomes such as decreased work participation, productivity and performance to cognitive and psychological symptoms such as perception of work overload, information fatigue, computer anxiety and dissatisfaction at work (Brod, 1984; Weil & Rosen, 1997; Suh & Han, 2003; Tu, et al., 2005). Studies have also found strong evidence to support that technostress led to decreased organizational and continuance commitment (Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008). Physical health dysfunctions such as sleep difficulties, headaches, irritability, stomach intestinal problems, and cardio vascular diseases have also been increasingly linked to technostress at work (Brillhart, 2004; Brod, 1984). Therefore, in today's technology-rich work environment, organizations can no longer afford to be oblivious about the pervasiveness of technostress and its toll on the workforce. Instead, organizations need to help employees reduce technostress in order to amplify their return on investments in technology and ensure organizational success. Globally, technostress is also on the rise. Heightened levels of technostress have been reported among workers in some of the fastest-growing economies such as China (Tu et al., 2005; Qiang et al., 2005), India (Sinkovics et al., 2002; Maudgalya, et al., 2004), Indonesia (Suharti and Susanto, 2014) and Malaysia (Ibrahim et al., 2014). The existence of heightened technostress in emerging economies is understandable as workers in these countries experienced dramatic changes in technological and business environments within a very short period of time. At the same time, this also reminds us that studying technostress requires a global perspective. While most of the existing studies on technostress are US-centric, it is necessary to expand technostress research to the global context. In addition, studying technostress in varied socio-economic and technological settings may yield interesting insights regarding the antecedents, consequences and remedies for technostress. Prior studies have also found that technostress was experienced by both IT professionals and end-users. The stress for IT professionals stemmed from rapid obsoletion of technical skills and increasing end-user demands for technical support (Sethi et al. …

The Dimensions of Technostress among Academic Librarians

This paper examines the level of technostress among academic librarians in the Malaysian public universities. The highly automated workplace environment causes technostress to become a common phenomenon among academic librarians. Based on related technostress theories, five dimensions of technostress were determined. A total of 162 academic librarians from nine public universities of West Malaysia were chosen as respondents for this study. A cross-sectional survey was carried out and data were collected using online self-administered survey. The results of the descriptive analysis indicate that, in general, the academic librarians experienced moderate level of technostress in their workplace. With regards to the technostress dimensions, the respondents were found to experience high level of techno-uncertainty and moderate level of techno-overload and techno-complexity. The findings, however, show that the respondents were only experiencing minimum level of techno-invasion and techno-insecurity.

The Impact of Computer Self-Efficacy and Technology Dependence on Computer-Related Technostress: A Social Cognitive Theory Perspective

Professionals and end users of computers often experience being constantly surrounded by modern technology. One side effect of modern technology is termed technostress, which refers to the “negative impact on attitudes, thoughts, behaviors, or body physiology that is caused either directly or indirectly by technology” (Well and Rosen, 1997). Based on social cognitive theory, this study developed a conceptual model in which computer-related technostress was studied as consequences of computer self-efficacy and technology dependence. Results show that (a) employees with higher level of computer self-efficacy have lower level of computer-related technostress, (b) employees with higher level of technology dependence have higher level of computer-related technostress, and (c) employees under different individual situations may perceive different levels of technostress. Contributions of this research and implications for theory and managerial practice are also discussed.

Social networking users’ views on technology and the determination of technostress levels

Despite being used frequently due to the benefits brought to daily life, the use of technology also brings with it certain disadvantages. One of these disadvantages, stress, is referred to as technostress. This study analyzes the technostress levels of social networking website users through different variables. Social networking website users were chosen under the assumption that they utilize technology more frequently and closely follow technological developments. Data was gathered by an online questionnaire, with 765 participants. The study concluded that social networking website users have a medium level of technostress, mainly caused by environmental reasons as opposed to social reasons. Also, it was found that age and familial monthly income causes differentiation in technostress levels.

Technostress under different organizational environments: An empirical investigation

Today’s pervasive information and communications technologies (ICTs) enable us to get connected almost anywhere at anytime. ICTs such as the Internet, the advanced wireless technologies and mobile communications networks are becoming increasingly indispensable in many aspects of business and everyday life. But to keep up with the fast advancing pace of the new ICTs, employees have to constantly renew their technical skills as well as enduring pressure from a more complex system and higher expectations for productivity. This often leads to ICT related technostress experienced by employees in many organizations. Studies have found technostress to have significant negative impact on employee productivity. Based on large-scale survey responses Chinese employees, this paper investigates the effects of different organizational environment settings on employee technostress levels. The results show that employees from more centralized companies often perceive more technostress. In addition, in organizations that are both highly centralized and highly innovative, the overall technostress level is the highest. On the other hand, in organizations with low centralization and low innovation, technostress is the lowest. This research will provide a foundation for organizations to understand and alleviate technostress, thus improving employee performance.