Technostress: The New Psychopathology Of The “digital Age”
The emergence of technology into our lives in the form of computers, the Internet, smartphones, tablets… has caused social, cultural and economic changes that have affected many individuals. No one can doubt the benefits of technology, and its use can be very useful as it allows us to be constantly in connection with almost every corner of the planet. New technologies provide us with new channels of relationships and communication and provide us with access to information in record time, in addition to providing us with new leisure opportunities.
But not everything is so pretty: Experts have been warning us for decades about the risks of misuse of technology. For two decades, psychologists have named new disorders that have emerged in the “information age” (also called digital age either computer era), such as FOMO Syndrome, Nomophobia and Technostress. We are going to talk about the latter in today’s article.
The concept of technostress is directly related to the negative effects of technology use.
It was named by the American psychiatrist Craig Brod in 1984 in his book Technostress: The Human Cost of the Computer Revolutionwho first defined this phenomenon as “an adaptive disease caused by the lack of ability to deal with new computer technologies in a healthy way.”
In 1997 the word technostress became popular thanks to a book by Larry Rosen and Michelle Well called Technostress: Coping with Technology @Work @Home @Play. The authors define technostress as “any negative impact (direct and/or indirect) of technology on an individual’s attitudes, thoughts, behaviors, or body physiology.” For them, the most common and documented form of this phenomenon is information excess, known as infoxication.
But both definitions were not very specific until Marisa Salanova, professor of psychology at the Jaume I University of Castellón, defined technostress in the following way: “Technostress is a negative psychological state that is related to the use of information technologies. and communication or with the threat of its use in the future. This state is conditioned by the perception of a mismatch between the demands and resources related to the use of ICT that causes a high level of psychophysiological activation, discomfort and development. of negative attitudes towards ICT”.
Technostress is a problem for companies
Although technostress affects all areas of life, It is in the work environment where most attention has been paid to this phenomenon. Salanova’s vision of technostress is related to the “demands-resources” paradigm that has dominated the organizational landscape in recent decades. It is in the world of work, and specifically in occupational risk prevention departments, where this phenomenon is beginning to be taken seriously.
Being connected to the computer at work all day, looking at the mobile phone every 5 minutes, arriving home and staying connected to the tablet while watching TV… Does it sound familiar to you? If you feel identified, you are not the only one: we spend 24 hours a day hooked on new technologies.
This situation is what causes technostress, and according to a recent study by the UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) technostress “it will become a new occupational risk, since new forms of work (such as teleworking) and the omnipresence caused by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can give rise to feelings of incapacity, lag or addiction in the worker”.
Antonio Cano, president of the Spanish Society for the Study of Anxiety and Stress (SEAS) insists that individuals must be educated, since the misuse of ICT can generate problems such as nervousness and anxiety.
According to data collected by the National Survey of Working Conditions which was carried out in 2011, 25% of workers feel overwhelmed by their work. Mostly, This discomfort is caused by a fast pace of work, with pressure on deadlines and the simultaneous management of tasks, all of them.factors related to new technologies. The workers most exposed to technological change, information overload and speed (workers in sectors such as communication, finance, administration or science and technology) are those who suffer the most from techno-stress.
Types of technostress
As with stress, technostress is a complex phenomenon that presents different symptoms. According to the National Institute of Safety and Hygiene at work in Spain There are different types of technostress. We explain them to you below.
1. Technoanxiety
The technoanxiety It is the most common type of technostress. The person who suffers from it usually experiences high levels of physiological activation that causes discomfort. Tension and unpleasant sensations are a characteristic feature of the present and future use of new technologies.
Some individuals develop an irrational fear of new technologies, which is known as technophobia. The symptoms of technophobia are: avoiding technology (including avoiding talking about it), anxiety in the presence of technology, and hostile and aggressive thoughts towards it.
2. Technofatigue
The technofatigue It is similar to burnout syndrome, as it is characterized by negative feelings such as fatigue, mental tiredness or cognitive exhaustion due to the continued use of new technologies. It can also manifest itself with skeptical attitudes and beliefs of ineffectiveness regarding the use of ICT.
Some authors speak of a specific type of technofatigue: the syndrome of information fatigue. This is a product of exposure, consumption and excessive management of information.
3. Technoaddiction
The technoaddiction It is characterized by the uncontrollable desire to be connected to ICT at all hours.
This behavior causes discomfort and deterioration in the individual’s life, and is related to the ability that digital environments such as the Internet have to generate FOMO in us (or “fear of missing out”), since it always offers us a constant source of news and visual stimuli about what is happening in both the virtual world and the physical world. The fact of knowing that in a couple of seconds we could be experiencing something that others experience and that we are missing causes us to suffer stress and develop dependence on devices such as smartphones.
