These will help you do those tasks that, on your own, you could not do. Not being the fastest animal, neither the strongest nor the most skillful, the human being had to use intelligence to create objects. These objects will help you match your skills with what the environment required of you.
Thus, from the creation of the first spears, through the wheel, the invention of fire, to computers, cell phones, automobiles, and other gadgets, the man began the era of technology. And, do you want to know something? This has lasted more than five thousand years! But is it possible that now that we are at the pinnacle of this era, the omnipresent technology is bringing us closer to a world full of stress? Or maybe it will help us cope? In Technology and Stress, we will talk about how technology can work as a double-edged sword. And we will help you to avoid that your rhythm of technological life, takes you to stress.
As with most of the tools that man has created, the negative repercussions are not inherent to the tool itself, but to the use, we give to those instruments. So, it is not that stress is a consequence of the use of technology, but depending on the use we give to it, it may or may not cause stress.
Situations of stress due to technology
In Technology and Stress, we will analyze three situations in which the stress caused by technology is presented. The work environment, the social sphere, and the physical-corporal environment.
The work environment:
This is always one of the places that present more stressful events in the life of any human being. In current times, the work environment always loaded with stress. Taking the above into account, now let’s add the use of technologies as stressful aspects in the worker’s life.
And is that those who have entered the world of work recently, have a better ability in the use of ICT (internet, computers, digital technologies, etc.), than those who entered 20 or 30 years ago. The technology has changed and evolved in a vertiginous way in which some have been left behind.
Technology at work
The works must now be supported by the use of specialized programs. Because they are more effective or simply because they are faster. And while companies invest many resources, keep your employees at the forefront in the use of new technologies of information and communication, in many cases; older workers simply see the use of these tools as an unnecessary complication. This gives them an increase in their efforts, to do a job that they used to do with half of the resources, which they must now occupy.
The computer, the stress facilitator
And that is because computers and specialized programs have created an extra burden on workers. Companies understand that tasks can be delivered more quickly and effectively, without errors, although this is not always necessarily true. So, with the idea that the machines are fast and they are not wrong, the worker finds that the delivery dates are shorter, while the workload is increasing.
Overtime, now from your home
Another factor of stress caused by technology in the workplace is the universal accessibility to the worker. Previously, certain hours were respected as worker’s time, because the lack of effective communication was a barrier that did not allow working more, now those times have been lost. Companies can now find their workers at any time and wherever they are. All thanks to cellular technology, the internet, and yes, the increasingly less used conventional telephone. Thus, in many jobs, the one who works is “at the call”, at any time. And although this is a treatment sometimes not written and sometimes if specified, the fact is that this creates a stress on the worker.