Relationship between technostress tendency and demographic characteristics and working conditions of computer operators

This study was based on the relation of technostress tendency with demographic characteristics and working conditions of computer operators. A questionnaire about technostress tendency and demographic characteristics and working conditions was asked to 280 (male = 238, female = 42) computer operators. The questionnaire about technostress tendency consists of 26 questions. The criteria used for demographic characteristics were age, sex, marital status and status of education about computers. The criteria for working conditions included duration of work, working time per day, duration of computer operation, frequency of breaks while operating computers, starting period for computer operation, amount of computer operation and amount of work on desk associated with computers. Each question about technostress tendency was given a point according to the answer; yes = 1, no = 0, unknown = 0.5 and the total points were used as the score to evaluate technostress tendency. Correlation coefficient was calculated to observe how the score was related to age, duration of work, working time per day, amount of computer operation and amount of work on desk associated with computers. Wilcoxon 2-sample test was conducted to examine how the score was influenced by sex, marital status, status of education about computers, frequency of breaks while operating computers, starting period for computer operation. For frequency of breaks while operating computers, 2 categories were given - A: take breaks regularly or often, B: seldom take breaks or take no break. As the answer of starting period for computer operating, the following 2 categories were given - A: started operating computers upon entering companies, B: started operating computers after entering companies. The results show that techno-centered tendency is significantly higher in males than in females and higher in operators who seldom take breaks or take no break than in those who take breaks regularly or often (p<0.01). Techno-anxious tendency is significantly higher in operators who have never been trained in computers than in those who have (p<0.01) and higher in operators who started operating computers after entering companies than those who started operating computers upon entering companies (p<0.05). It is suggested that males need to pay more attention to protect themselves from techno-centered stress. It would be important to take breaks regularly or often while operating computers to protect computer operators from techno-centered stress. In addition, training in computers for both beginners in the computers and people who start operating computers after entering companies would be effective to protect them from techno-anxious stress.