Impact of Technostress and Workload on Behavioral Stress During Covid-19: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Over the past many years, technology has become an integral part of everything (Jena, 2015). It is impossible to imagine life without smart phones, laptops and internet. These technologies are being used daily by everyone all over the world (Nauta, 2020). However, a faster adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) happened in early 2020, when the World Health Organization declared novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as health emergency and the world shifted towards digitalization (Petersen & Bluth,2020). In the wake of pandemic, countries across the globe developed several emergency measures and implemented countrywide lockdown to prevent the spreads of virus. Trade activities and travel activities around the world were halted. During these times working from home became necessary and was one of the measures that was adopt to keep the economic and business activities going (Slavic, 2020). Like many other countries, working from home was adopted in Pakistan as well. There has been increase in number of people working from home both in public and private organizations worldwide. However, in Pakistan, except some private organization which shifted to remote working, governments and public institute were lock down and shifted to online teaching (Government of Pakistan, 2020). Worldwide, almost 81% workforce was affected due to locked down (Savić, 2020) and many of them experienced working from home for the first time (Barbiton et al., 2020).