From Technostress to Digital Well-being

Technology can be a source of stress at work, contributing to a variety of mental health problems. Therefore, it is important to understand how to mitigate the effects of technology-related stress and promote digital well-being at work in the context of increasingly virtual workplaces. This chapter overviews the factors causing technostress in contemporary organizations and delineates ways of enhancing digital well-being. Virtual workplaces can inflict stress by increasing work-related stressors (overload, time pressure, poor communication) and intensifying technostress-creating conditions. Also, technostress can result from how people feel obligated to relate to their work in the digitalized workplace and to a digitalized society at work, as well as from internalizing the “ideal worker” image. Digital well-being is achieved through the more mindful use of technology, the development of digital and remote work skills, and the design of organizational practices aimed at solving paradoxical situations where information and communication technologies can simultaneously promote and hinder employee well-being and productivity. Most importantly, technostress can be lessened by establishing norms governing technology in work and home contexts.