Technostress in the Age of Information and Communication Technology among the Workforce in Nigeria: A Comparative Study
Keywords:
Technostress, information and communication technology, education, banking sectorAbstract
Globally, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has virtually taken every aspect of human endeavours both in personal and official activities. Though, this is a positive development in all ramifications, looking at the effectiveness and progress it has brought to human activities and growth but it is without any attendant effects. One of such effects is technostress; a modern disease caused by the inability to cope with computer technology in a healthy manner, This study aims at ascertaining the influence of age, gender, nature and place of work on the manifestation of technostress. Technostress scale, a 22-item Likert-type, two-sub-scale questionnaire designed for the study was administered on the 201 samples drawn from 5 schools in the National Open University of Nigeria, and 5 commercial banks in the Lagos metropolis. The data were analysed using t-test, correlation and ANOVA statistics. Four hypotheses, three of which were confirmed, were raised for the study. The results showed that (i) academic staff manifested significantly higher levels of technostress than the employees from the banking sector, (ii) there were no gender differences in the manifestations of technostress either amongst bankers or academic staff, (iii) older participants manifested higher levels of technostress than younger participants, (iv) a positive correlation was observed between computer hassles and stress reaction. In conclusion, improved .‘CT training and stress management interventions were highlighted as management techniques for technostress in the two human industries.
References
Agbu, J. O. (2010). Type A Behaviour Pattern: A New Insight into Gender Challenges in Higher Education. Psychology, Health and Medicine, Vol. 15, Number 2, pp. 528-539.
Al-Fudail, M., & Mellar, H. (2007). Investigating Teacher Stress When Using Technology (Electronic Version). Computers & Education, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 1103-10.
Al-Qallaf, C. L. (2006). Librarians and Technology in Academic and Research Libraries in Kuwait: Perceptions and Effects. Libri, Vol. 56, pp. 168-79.
Ametz, Bengt B.& Berg, Mats (1993). Techno-Stress. Psycho-Physiological
Consequences of Poor Man-machine Interface. In Michael J. Smith & Gavriel Salvendy (Eds.). Human-Computer Interaction: Applications and Case Studies. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 891-896.
Bichteler, J. (1987). Technostress in Libraries: Causes, Effects and Solutions. Electronic Library, Vol. 5 (October), pp. 282-87.
Brod, C. (1984). Technostress: The Human Cost of the Computer Revolution. Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Charlesworth, E. & Nathan, R. (1984). Stress Management. NY: Ballantine.
Clute, R.. (1998). Technostress: A Content Analysis. Kent State University. Kupersmith, J. (1992). Technostress and the Reference Librarian. Reference Services Review, Vol. 20, pp. 7-14.
Emurian, Henry H. (1991). Physiological Responses during Data Retrieval: Comparison of constant and variable system response times. Computers in Human Behavior, 7, 291-310.
Emurian, Henry H. (1993). Human-computer Interactions: Are There Adverse Health Consequences? Computers in Human Behavior, 5, 265-275.
Friedman, M. & Rosenman, R. H. (1974). Type A Behaviour and your Heart. NY: Knopf.
Hudiburg, Richard A. (1995). Psychology of Computer Use: XXIV. The Computer Hassles Scale: Subscales, Norms, and Reliability. Psychological Reports, v.77, 779-782.
Kupersmith, J. (1992). Technostress and the Reference Librarian. Reference Services Review, Vol. 20, pp. 7-14.
Kupersmith, J. (1998). Technostress in the Bionic Library. Recreating the Academic Library.
Massey, M. & Stedman, D. (1995). Emotional climate in the information technology organization: Crisis or crossroads? Cause/Effect Magazine, 18 (4), 7-19.
Muter, P., Furedy, J. J., Vincent, A. & Pelcowitz, T. (1993). User-hostile Systems and Patterns of Psychophysiological Activity. Computers in Human Behaviour, 9, 105-111.
Omoluabi, P. F. (1984). Standardization of Psychophysiological Symptom Checklist. Nigerian Journal of Psychology, 6 & 7 (1 & 2), 118-129.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Migrants. Digital Game-Based Learning. NY: McGraw-Hill.
Tarafdar, M., Tu, Q., Ragu-Nathan, B. S. & Ragu-Nathan, T. S. (2007). The Impact of Technostress on Role Stress and Productivity [Electronic Version]. Journal of Information Management Systems, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 301-28.
Ragu-Nathan, T.S., Tarafdar, M., Ragu-Nathan, B. and Tu, Q. (2008). “The Consequences of Technostress for End Users in Organizations: Conceptual Development and Empirical Validation,” Information Systems Research, 19:4
Raja, I., Azline, A. & Siti, B. (2007). Technostress: A study of academic and non-academic staff. In Dainoff, M. J. (Ed.). Ergonomics and Health Aspects. Heidelberg: springer-Verlege.
Rosen, L. & Weil, M. (2000). Technostress: Coping with technology at work, at home, at play, New York: J. Wiley.
Shepard, J. M. (1971). Automation and alienation: A study of office and factory workers. Cambridge, MA: M. T. Press.
Selye, H. (1956). The Stress of Life, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
