Stress & Technology
Technology and Stress in the Workplace Western movies have always portrayed cowboys with guns on their hips. Whoever draws the fastest, got to live longer than their opponents. Twenty-first century technology has replaced the guns with cell phones, blackberries, laptop computers, palm-pilots and other electronic gadgets. Memos that used to be type-written then mailed, progressed to being faxed when fax machines were invented. Electronic mail replaced the type-written variety and made communication globally instantaneous. Internet technologies and e-mail demand that employees respond immediately to requests for information. Executives nowadays are expected to be reached at anytime, anywhere, enabling them to have access to many sources of information as they become available. Incoming trays in offices were slowly replaced by e-mail inboxes. James Sewell in his article Handling the Stress of the Electronic World, wrote that "the number of e-mail messages sent from businesses in North America has risen from 40 billion in 1995 to an estimated 1.4 trillion in 2001" (2003, para. 2). These improvements in technology have direct effects on stress in the workplace. They can relieve or cause stress, depending on the percepti
Employees also use their laptops to connect to their work servers and perform tasks anywhere, anytime. "Just in time" communication is key to the growth and success of the business. The ability to mediate between the "ought" and "is" of values and conflicts enables an individual to manage stress and avoid burnout. "Stress is simply one reaction to pressure, which may be positive or negative" (Speck, 1993, para. Technology has also redefined productivity. What used to be done by three or four people ten years ago, are being done by one person today (Brown, 2003). This "expected turnaround on responses" places a lot of stress on employees (Sewell, 2003, para. In the case of technology and its effects of stress in the workplace, the individual's belief of how he perceives he should handle the stimulus, added to how he believes his workplace expects him to behave, will determine the level and kind of stress that he will experience.
Common topics in this essay:
North America,
Workplace Western,
Retrieved February,
Electronic World,
Bulletin August,
Communication March,
Custom Edition,
Hunt Osborn,
sewell 2003,
Organizational Behavior,
2003 para,
stress workplace,
Retrieved January,
sewell 2003 para,
cell phones,
1993 para,
speck 1993,
malignant stress,
custom edition e-text,
speck defines,
workplace individual's,
edition e-text,
retrieved february 1,
february 1 2004,
2004 ebscohost database,
|
Acceptance Essays
