Monitoring Technology In Your Life: A Work in Progress

Contemporary information technologies are pervasive in the workplace. When working properly, information technology streamlines work and improves efficiency of an organization. However, when information technology... [ view full abstract ]

Contemporary information technologies are pervasive in the workplace. When working properly, information technology streamlines work and improves efficiency of an organization. However, when information technology malfunctions, workers can find themselves in complete disarray, unable to perform. While our IT-reliant lifestyle has had a dramatic impact on business productivity it has also caused technology-induced stress, termed technostress. We know very little about how individual differences affect technostress either objectively, through stress hormones such as alpha-amylase, or perceptually through questionnaires. This study argues that being stressed is not always the same as feeling stressed, or an individual’s physiology does not necessarily correlate to his or her psychology when working on online tasks. We believe that personality can cause individuals to over or underreact to techno-stressful situations and thus at times cry wolf when complaining about the effect work has on his or her stress level. To do this, we examined four personality characteristics: locus of control, social desirability, fear of negative evaluation, and propensity to worry to see how they correlate with perceived stress, objective strain, and performance. Preliminary results from a pilot test provide insight into how personality differently affects stress and strain.