The web of automation anxiety : mapping digital fear from mainframes to artificial intelligence

Automation anxiety, the pervasive concern about the adverse consequences of technological change, is conceptually fragmented within the Information Systems (IS) literature. Existing research addresses related issues in isolation, thus limiting understanding of how these concerns interact and persist over time. This paper develops an integrated and historically grounded conceptualization of automation anxiety for the IS field. Drawing on an inductive synthesis of IS and social-science research, the paper defines automation anxiety. It identifies five interrelated dimensions: Job Replacement, Deskilling Effect, Supply Chain Risk, Data Vulnerability, and Solow's Paradox. These dimensions are organised into a web of automation anxiety, highlighting how technological risk is shaped not only by calculable hazard but also by socially amplified outrage. To explain the persistence and evolution of automation anxiety, the framework is situated within a longitudinal analysis of five eras of computing, adapted from Moschella's waves-of-power model. The analysis shows how anxieties associated with scale, speed, connectivity, human limits, and combinatorial innovation accumulate, recombine and amplify as technologies persist, layer, and diffuse. By integrating conceptual, interactional, and longitudinal perspectives, this paper positions automation anxiety as a cumulative socio-technical phenomenon rather than a transient or technology-specific reaction. The framework offers IS researchers a structured lens for analyzing technological fear across eras. It provides managers and policymakers with insights into how design, governance, and communication choices can mitigate anxiety in increasingly automated environments.