Distress, Eustress, or No Stress? : Explaining Smartphone Users™ Different Technostress Responses

Abstract

Technostress is common and has harmful consequences. Therefore, researchers have shown increasing interest in explaining technostress in the field of information systems (IS). While extant research merits in identifying the causes and consequences of technostress, it has not explained empirically why information technology (IT) users have different responses to similar potentially stressful IT events. Indeed, events such as smartphone failures can derive negative distress responses for some users and positive eustress responses for others. To address this gap in research, we conducted a qualitative study by interviewing users who had experienced smartphone failures. As a contribution, our findings uncover five distinct types of narratives for technostress responses and identify four perceptual dimensions that shape the corresponding responses. As such, we provide an initial answer to the call for understanding users’ different interpretations of potentially stressful IT events. Such knowledge can help promoting the favorable outcomes of IT use and minimizing the negative side effects.