AUTHOR: CAROLINE ZIELINSKI SECTION: GENERAL NEWS ARTICLE TYPE: NEWS ITEM
AUDIENCE : 69,863 PAGE: 18 PRINTED SIZE: 532.00cm² REGION: VIC MARKET: Australia
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15 OCT, 2020
Zooming in on technostress
Age, Melbourne
Zooming in on
technostress
From boundaries to etiquette, we ought
to cut us some slack. BY CAROLINE ZIELINSKI
It’s just after 5pm and your phone
buzzes. You have two Slack
notifications from your manager,
an email notification to set up a
Zoom meeting tomorrow, and a
request for a Google Hangout from
a potential new client.
It may technically be the end of
the working day, but since you’re at
home and still in front of the
computer, you may as well answer
those emails now. After all, it’s been
months since you’ve last seen your
boss in the office – you don’t want
them to think you’re slacking off.
If the above sounds familiar, it’s
because navigating multiple
technologies has become the norm.
It has a name: ‘‘technostress’’ – a
specific kind of stress relating to
the various technologies we
engage with, or feel compelled to
engage with more than we’d like to.
While not a new term
(technostress was first identified in
1984 during the personal computer
revolution), the unprecedented
rate at which people have had to
adapt to working with technology
owing to COVID-19 has accelerated
its breadth and impact, affecting
even those we’d least expect.
Vanessa Ferguson, senior VP of
people and experience at
Melbourne-based software
company LiveTiles, says working at
a technology company did not inure
her to the technostress. ‘‘Because
we have always been eager and
quick adopters of new technologies,
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I have a high level of comfort when it
comes to using all sorts of platforms.
That said, even I am feeling the tech
overload personally, so I can only
imagine how people not in the
industry are coping.’’ Ferguson also
says the adoption of technology has
‘‘led to a misconception that a rapid
response to your email is a reflection
of your competence’’.
Reeva Lederman from the
University of Melbourne’s school of
engineering says technostress can
affect even highly skilled
professionals. ‘‘It’s not about your
technical skill or ability to use the
technology; it’s about your
response to technological stimulus
that is the issue, and it’s about your
personality.’’
People with a creative
personality often find technology a
‘‘disruption that gets in the way of
doing their job’’, Professor
Lederman says, while others ‘‘love
the technological environment – it
feeds on their need for stimulation’’.
The migration to working from
home has been a difficult transition
for those who work in industries
that rely on being ‘seen’ at work,
such as law and finance, which
Professor Lederman says can create
another type of technostress. ‘‘For
young lawyers and finance people
used to being in the office for 14
hours a day, being seen at the desk
gives them their office credibility.’’
Psychiatrist and Monash
Page 1 of 2
University Professor Jayashri
Kulkarni says the sudden shift to
remote working is leaving some
older people feeling like failures. ‘‘A
lot of people feel like they’re out of
step with the modern world,’’ she
says. ‘‘The other day I had a patient
say, ‘it’s time for me to go, I don’t
understand this world any more’.’’
With most communications now
online, it means we also have to
adapt our behaviour to suit a screen
audience. Professor Kulkarni says
that for many, learning these new
rules of online etiquette and
interactions doesn’t come easily,
and can contribute to stress.
‘‘There is also the feeling of
unreality when interacting
through a screen; we are used to
humans interacting in non-verbal
ways, which are intangible and
hard to describe but nevertheless
integral to communication.’’
A reliance on technology is also
challenging what constitutes good
behaviour during online meetings.
For some, turning off the camera
during a Zoom meeting is equivalent
to turning the chair around in a
physical meeting; for others, it’s
necessary to help reclaim some
semblance of privacy and comfort.
It’s also true that some people
have found the online environment
particularly convenient, and that in
some ways it has torn down the
barriers between personal and work
 AUTHOR: CAROLINE ZIELINSKI SECTION: GENERAL NEWS ARTICLE TYPE: NEWS ITEM
AUDIENCE : 69,863 PAGE: 18 PRINTED SIZE: 532.00cm² REGION: VIC MARKET: Australia
ASR: AUD 29,762 WORDS: 695 ITEM ID: 1348270351

15 OCT, 2020
Zooming in on technostress

Age, Melbourne
Page 2 of 2

life. ‘‘For many managers, this is the

first time they’ve had insight into
people’s private lives ... This is
leading to an increase in
understanding that people have
lives outside work that don’t neatly
go away,’’ Professor Lederman says.

Illustration: Simon Letch

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