(in German)

Many employees’ working routines are no longer imaginable without digital technologies. But what impacts does regular interaction with these technologies have on their health and performance? How high are the levels of digital stress in Germany? What influences them, and who is particularly at risk? These and other questions have been answered by a study conducted as part of "Prevention for Safe and Healthy Work with Digital Technologies" (PräDiTec), a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF). A representative survey of more than 5,000 working individuals in Germany was conducted for this purpose.

The study made it possible to identify twelve different stressors that affect people who work with digital technologies and media. They include omnipresence, the feeling of constantly being reachable and having to respond more quickly because the boundaries between work and private life are blurred. Another stressor, overload, is characterised by the feeling of having to work harder and more quickly on account of the greater volumes of information that are available. Performance control and the invasion of their privacy were mentioned most frequently by the respondents as factors contributing to digital stress. It is remarkable not just that a third of the participants were very strongly exposed to at least one of these stressors, but also that almost a fifth experienced serious digital stress on account of the stressor in question.

Yet not every workplace equipped with digital technologies causes digital stress to the same degree. The combination of the number of digital technologies and media deployed and the intensity of their use has an influence on the perceived stress. For instance, stress levels are highest where a large variety of different technologies are used relatively infrequently. The skills and knowledge required to master such technologies are more difficult to retain when they are rarely used and workers become less confident about handling them.

Digital stress is associated with issues that range from exhaustion, irritation, and mental health problems to musculoskeletal diseases. Work dissatisfaction and poorer performance are also potential consequences of digital stress. Nonetheless, organisational and social factors can counteract digital stress in the workplace. For example, broader autonomy when it comes to work-relevant decisions and good relationships with superiors have positive effects.

The study "Healthy Digital Work?!" can be downloaded from the website https://gesund-digital-arbeiten.de (German only).