The influence of digitalization and new technologies on psychosocial work environment and employee health: a literature review

Digitalized communication forms, digital platforms, and social media have altered the ways work must and can be carried out, and have provided opportunities to organize work in fundamentally different ways. The current literature review was conducted to explore the consequences of digitalization and new technology in the workplace for the psychosocial work environment and occupational health and well‐being. A systematic literature search was conducted by which peer‐reviewed empirical studies published in scientific journals dating from 2000 to and including June 2018 were identified. Studies were considered relevant if they reported, quantified, and statistically tested associations of either 1) Workplace technology use or consequences thereof with factors of the psychosocial work environment, or 2) Workplace technology use or consequences thereof with health (psychological or somatic symptoms, well‐being, disorder, or disease). A total of 6172 publications were screened. Application of exclusion criteria and additional browsing of reference lists of included studies resulted in a total of 53 studies being reviewed, 40 of which had a cross‐sectional design. When conducting the narrative review the 53 included studies were grouped into the following thematic categories; i) Introduction of new technologies, ii) Technostress, iii) Information and communication technology (ICT) demands, iv) “Workplace telepressure”, availability demands, [...]