Two Decades of the Dark Side in the Information Systems Basket : Suggesting Five Areas For Future Research

Abstract

Despite its benefits, information technology (IT) use is associated with serious negative effects on individuals. For example, technostress and IT addiction can harm IT users’ organizational performance and everyday well-being. Such dark side phenomena have become more evident since IT has transmuted into a major component of humans’ job routines and private lives. However, since current information systems (IS) research on the dark side is in an early and fragmented stage, there is a need for a synthesis. To address this need, we conducted a literature review of 37 articles published in the IS basket journals between 1995 and 2015. We detected four key phenomena: technostress, information overload, IT addiction, and IT anxiety. Within the analysis of the articles, we paid special attention to the antecedents, consequences, and mitigation mechanisms of each phenomenon. Based on our findings, this article contributes to IS research by pointing out unmapped territories in the IS basket and suggesting five areas for future research: (1) Technostress mitigation mechanisms in everyday use of IT, (2) IT addiction in organizational use of IT, (3) Information overload in everyday use of IT, (4) IT anxiety in everyday use of IT, and (5) Personal IT actions as mitigation mechanisms.