Are You Suffering from Technostress?

I’ve been noticing an increasing number of people around me being particularly hard on themselves for their “lack” of ability to use computer technology. I’d even say they suffer from technostress. Some of them have even admitted it.

Dictionary.com defines technostress as “a feeling of anxiety or mental pressure from overexposure or involvement with (computer) technology.” It’s a term that came into use during the 80′s when computer technology was developing at a tremendous rate. In fact, it was recognized that this rate would continue to increase for quite some time (see Moore’s Law). Today, thought leader Ray Kurzweil suggests that “the rate of innovation of computer technology is increasing not linearly [as was originally theorized in Moore's Law] but rather exponentially.” According to Kurzweil’s argument, “since growth in so many fields of science and technology depends upon computing power, these improvements translate into exponentially more frequent advances in non-computer sciences like nanotechnology, biotechnology, and materials science.” (learn more here). In simple terms, we are each encountering more new technology (whether we embrace it or not) now more than ever before in our lives. It seems no wonder that any of us might be prone to suffer from technostress.

From my perspective, I can see that people (myself included) tend to be pretty hard on themselves when it comes to how they interrelate with technology. I’m observing that the technostress stems from a focus on the inequity at hand. There are probably many inequities at work here. I’ll put these inequities into three categories to help us to look at them more closely.

One type of inequity is interpersonal. It’s the way we compare and contrast our own preferred use of technology with that of others.

Another manifests itself in the technology we choose (or choose not) to use. Let’s call this the inequity of choice.

Finally, there is an inequity within oneself, or internal inequity. This one runs the gamut of personal awareness touch-points from what we expect of ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to (our ideals) and what we’re actually capable of at any given moment in time with the resources we have at our disposal, to the way we see and perceive ourselves in the world and the way we learn and take in information.

Personally, I can already see that these three types of inequity that lead to technostress are not inextricable. Yet, taken together, as it naturally happens, these inequities add up to a powerful stress-inducing outcome.

It seems clear that technostress is pretty much unavoidable. But maybe, just maybe, we can learn to adapt to the growing rate of technology in such a way that we can thrive in its presence. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I’d love to hear from you on this topic. Are you suffering from technostress? How has it shown up in your life recently?

Stay tuned for more. I’ll be addressing each of the inequities I’ve mentioned and will be offering up some strategies for transcending the difficulties that technostress presents.