Technostress: an often invisible but significant determinant of mental health
Digital technologies have fundamentally transformed the way we work, study, and communicate over the past few decades. They offer speed, flexibility, and constant connectivity, yet it is increasingly clear that they also may bring with them ongoing psychological pressure. What was meant to make everyday life easier has, for many people, become a constant background of tension. This phenomenon is known as technostress: stress that arises not from individual personal characteristics, but from technological environments themselves and the expectations associated with them. In other words, technostress is an important social and occupational determinant of mental health.
When notifications never stop, information becomes overwhelming, and we are expected to be reachable almost all the time. When systems are constantly changing, and with them, the demands to adapt. When constant monitoring becomes part of everyday life and the boundaries between work and rest gradually disappear. Under such conditions, the sense of control weakens and psychological strain increases. It is important to recognise that these are not random individual experiences – they arise from how work is organised, what kind of culture prevails in teams, and how technologies are introduced and used.
Scientific research increasingly shows that technostress has tangible consequences for mental health. For example, a systematic review of studies on work-related technostress found that technology-related stressors are consistently associated with poorer well-being, burnout, other negative health outcomes, and poorer work performance across various occupational groups. One of the classic empirical studies in organisational contexts already identified in 2008 that technostress significantly affects employees’ job satisfaction, productivity, and intentions to leave their job, thereby revealing that the impact of technology is neither neutral nor merely a technical issue. Other studies highlight that the very characteristics of technologies themselves, such as complex systems, frequent changes and developments, and information overload, may act as stressors that can affect mental health.
Author – dr. Ugnė Grigaitė (Photo by Joe Wood)
Technostress affects not only people in employment, but it is increasingly affecting students as well. Remote lectures, the constant need to stay connected, and technological overload for many people mean not greater flexibility, but a blurred boundary between work and leisure or personal life. Studies involving students show that these experiences are associated with higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms, especially during periods when remote learning becomes part of everyday life.
From a public mental health perspective, technostress is not merely a personal difficulty or an alleged “inability to cope”. It is a structural problem arising from how work or studies are organised, what expectations of availability are maintained in organisations or institutions, and how technologies are implemented in everyday practice. Power relations between managers and subordinates also play a role, and these can be further intensified by digital systems. For this reason, suggestions to simply “take care of oneself” or “build resilience” do not resolve the problem.
Preventing technostress requires a systemic approach. Clear boundaries around availability, realistic expectations regarding digital workloads, strengthening the autonomy of employees or students, person-centred technology design, and an organisational culture that takes mental health seriously become not optional measures, but an essential part of mental health protection. When technostress is recognised as a mental health determinant, the direction of responsibility also changes: it shifts away from constant individual “adaptation” towards broader, fairer, and more sustainable solutions. This makes it possible to create digital environments that not only function effectively but also protect and support people’s mental health.
Through the European Union-funded project “TechnoWell: Digital Well-Being and Technostress Education for Adults”, we aim to address technostress in workplaces by equipping adult education professionals, employers, managers, and employees with the skills to balance digital progress and transformation with their psychological and emotional well-being. We invite everyone who cares about this topic to follow the project’s Facebook page.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them. Project Number: 2025-1-DE02-KA220-ADU-000360716.
