Using IT Mindfulness to Mitigate the Negative Consequences of Technostress

Research in the IS field has been focusing on investigating the adverse effects of ICT usage such as technostress. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated mechanisms for the alleviation of this phenomenon. This study contributes to the technostress literature by adopting a mindfulness perspective that has not been investigated before. In this paper, we aim to explore the role of IT mindfulness as a buffer to technostress stressors as well as a mechanism that can mitigate the negative consequences arising from extended ICT usage within organizational settings. By following a survey based approach and exploring a sample of 440 working individuals, our SEM analysis revealed that IT mindfulness constitutes a potential further mechanism that can effectively reduce technostress conditions, enhance user satisfaction while utilizing ICT’s for work tasks and improve task performance. Further research is proposed into expanding the proposed model, exploring the influence of IT mindfulness on additional organizational outcomes. Keywords IT Mindfulness, Technostress, stressors, ICT, organization

Technostress Management at the Workplace: A Systematic Literature Review

Technostress is a major problem for employees and organizations, as it impairs employee health and weakens organizational performance. Therefore, it is relevant to effectively manage technostress and reveal ways for mitigating the adverse consequences. Seeing that previous studies on technostress management have provided a foundation for review work, we conduct a systematic literature review and integrate the scholarly findings of 22 research articles of different disciplines on technostress management strategies at the workplace. Our work provides an overview of technostress management strategies highlighting that technostress management strategies address the user, the technological, organizational, or the social environment. Moreover, we shed light on discipline-specific investigations of technostress management and derive five distinct avenues for future research. Our work thereby guides researchers to fill the identified research gaps and extend the understanding of ways for mitigating technostress

The Impact of Digital Technologies on Memory and Memory Studies

With the widespread integration of smartphones, computers, and the internet, information access and processing have undergone significant changes. This paper investigates both positive and negative implications, acknowledging the extension of cognitive capacities through easy access to vast databases and external memory aids while also addressing concerns about diminished memory consolidation and reliance on shallow encoding strategies. Examining the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, the study also highlights collaborative efforts among scholars in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and information science to comprehend the impact of digital technologies on memory, and emphasizes the challenges and future directions in memory research, including issues like digital amnesia, information overload, and privacy concerns. Overall, the paper underscores the need for understanding the relationship between human memory and digital tools, enabling the development of strategies to enhance memory, counteract potential adverse effects, and promote a balanced utilization of digital resources in memory-related tasks

Digital Detox – Mitigating Digital Overuse in Times of Remote Work and Social Isolation

Remote work arrangements and limited recreational options in times of social isolation increase the risk of digital overuse for individuals. Its consequences can range from impaired mental health to issues of technology addiction. A conformant countermovement has popularised “digital detoxing”, a practice that endorses to deliberately limit technology use to reduce digital involvement and physiological stress. In times of social isolation, however, digital networking may provide the principle access to social interactions. To provide empirical evidence about the sweet spot between mitigating digital overuse and perceived social connectedness, this paper proposes a mixed-methods design to scrutinise the impact of digital detox measures in a professional context. Possible results will help to better understand how digital overuse may effectively be mitigated by remote workers and what measures organisations can take to create a digital environment that supports employee satisfaction and mental health

Motivators of Knowledge Workers to Conduct Digital Detox

A great deal of time spent with information and communication technologies (ICT) makes knowledge workers especially susceptible to technostress. In this regard, the concept of digital detox has emerged to describe a strategic and periodic disengagement with ICT. Whereas extant research has put emphasis on untangling the characteristics and effects of digital detox, we do not know what motivators underly this practice other than the more general notion of technostress. Therefore, this study undertakes a qualitative approach with 10 phenomenological interviews to identify motivators of digital detox in knowledge work. The interview results culminate in a typology of individual digital detox motivators. We contribute to the theorization of digital detox by linking different types of motivators (prevention/coping/performance/physiological reboot) to digital detox and its effects on the experience of technostress. Implications for the design of digital detox policies that match with the motivations of knowledge workers can be derived

Understanding the Effect of Social Media Overload on Academic Performance: A Stressor-Strain-Outcome Perspective

Social media has deeply penetrated into university students’ daily lives, inducing excessive usage that can result in social media overload. However, only few studies have explored the adverse consequences of social media use from a pedagogical perspective. This paper aims to investigate the effects of overload on students’ academic performance and the underlying mechanism. Based on the stressor-strain-outcome model, we propose that information, communication, and social overloads influence technostress and exhaustion of students, which in turn impair their academic performance. Results from a study of 249 Chinese social media users in universities reveal that all three types of overload enhance technostress, but only information overload significantly affect exhaustion. Both technostress and exhaustion have negative effects on academic performance. This study enriches social media literature by identifying a more comprehensive classification of social media-related overload among university students and investigating the exact mechanism of excessive social media use in educational environment

Who is Stressed by Using ICTs? A Qualitative Comparison Analysis with the Big Five Personality Traits to Understand Technostress

The purpose of the current study is to reveal personality profiles that predispose to the experience of techno-stressors within an organizational setting. These insights are useful because techno-stressors lead to considerable costs and adverse health effects. We use the theoretical lens of the transaction-based model of stress to study the effect of the Big Five personality traits on techno-stressors. We distributed a self-rating questionnaire among 221 individuals and analyzed data using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparison Analysis. The results reveal that six different personality profiles lead to the experience of techno-stressors. The study contributes to research by revealing that personality traits need to be investigated in profiles when studying their role in technostress and that different profiles of the Big Five predispose to techno-stressors. The results are useful for practitioners as they allow the prevention of techno-stressors and negative consequences by detecting users who are at risk at an early stage

Examining the role of mindfulness in mitigating technostress and its negative consequences

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThe proliferation and ubiquity of information technologies (ICTs) have transformed the working environment of organizations, making imperative the engagement of individuals with various technologies for the accomplishment of their work tasks. Although ICTs have offered significant benefits both to individuals and organizations, those advances have come with some costs. Recently, academic literature has shown an increased interest in the dark side or else the negative aspects of technology usage within the workplace, focusing on the stress that individuals experience due to the extended usage of ICTs called technostress. A considerable amount of literature has been published on the concept of technostress revealing its severe consequences on individuals, leading to huge monetary costs for organizations; however, few studies have investigated mechanisms for the alleviation of this phenomenon thus the need for further research is crucial. Addressing this call of research, the present study contributes to the technostress literature by adopting for the first time a mindfulness perspective. The current study aims to examine the role of mindfulness as an organizational mechanism that can mitigate the impact of technostress on individuals as well as alleviate its negative consequences. By following a mixed methods approach, the current study involved two phases; At first, a theoretical framework was developed, based on the transactional-based model of stress, in order to examine the influence of mindfulness on technostress as well as its impact on job related and IT usage related outcomes. By conducting a survey-based approach and exploring a sample of 500 working individuals, the developed model was validated through SEM analysis revealing that mindfulness constitutes a powerful mechanism that can effectively reduce technostress, increase job satisfaction while also enhance user satisfaction while utilizing ICTs for work tasks and improve task performance. During the second phase of the study, the thematic analysis of the collected data, derived from semi-structured interviews, validated the results of the quantitative analysis confirming the role of mindfulness in reducing technostress conditions; while also yielded deeper insights revealing a set of strategies that more mindful individuals deploy during technostress experiences. Overall, the current study enhances existing literature in the IS domain by revealing the valuable role of mindfulness in protecting individuals against the negative impact of stressful events occurring due to ICT usage while also providing substantial practical implications; By introducing mindfulness programs for their employees, corporate and HR managers can significantly improve employees’ work life, increase individual productivity and enhance overall wellbeing at work thus ultimately improving the business performance and overall success of the organization