Digital collaborative tools, such as social media platforms, have been increasingly used for professional purposes already prior COVID-19 and further accelerated in 2020’s [1]-[4]. Thus, the omnipresent tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom have been surreptitiously conquering employees’ private lives for some time [5]-[6]. Professional social media usage refers to the use of social media platforms for work purposes such as for professional social networking [7]-[8] and discussing, following, producing, or sharing content related to work or the organization [7] and providing possibility to work collaboratively and have online meetings regardless of location [9]. This can occur through public social media services, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, or organizations’ internal social media platforms, such as Workplace from Facebook and MS Teams.
Studies suggest that professional social media usage facilitates enhanced working practices, such as improved communication possibilities, information access, and sharing [4],[10]-[11]. Moreover, social media provides good opportunities for task-oriented and relationship-building behaviors, innovative team collaboration, organizational identification, and transparency [12]-[14]. Working virtually provides employees with flexibility in completing their work, considering family responsibilities and work life balance, and can foster work performance, productivity, and work engagement [4],[14]-[16].
Besides the above-mentioned positive impacts of new technologies at work, the use of technologies at work can trigger stress (i.e., technostress) and related negative consequences [17]. Two particularly important concepts in terms of technostress are techno-stressors and strain [17]-[18]. In line with the transactional view of stress [19], techno-stressors refer to the stress creators as demand conditions that form within the interactions between the individual and the technology. Strain refers to an individual’s negative psychological, physiological and/or behavioral response in relation to the techno-stressors [20]-[21]. Furthermore, strain is associated with various behavioral outcomes, such as reduced work productivity [22]-[24] and declined organizational commitment [17],[25]. Altogether, technostress emerges when the techno-stressors exceed an individual’s resources for managing them, resulting in strain and other potential negative outcomes [18]. Furthermore, a techno-stressor labeled technology invasion (i.e., technology use constantly invading one’s life) is one of the core elements creating technostress [25]-[26] and has been positively associated with strain [21],[26]-[27].
Technology and social media specifically, along with work tasks, is more frequently following employees from workplaces to their homes, therefore invading employees’ private lives [6],[18],[28]-[29]. Social media use is ubiquitous, and it absorbs users in dynamic social networks and interactions that make users prone to remaining constantly available and to receiving invading messages or other notifications also outside office hours [28],[30]-[31]. Excessive amounts and unpredictable work can be received through digital means [15],[17], in addition to communication, information, and social overload [32]. Social media can increase cognitive preoccupation, which can restrict employees to combine work with their personal and family life [1],[33]. Furthermore, studies on remote workers have demonstrated that technostress and especially technology invasion are associated with work–family conflicts [27]-[28],[34]. Consequently, the inability to draw boundaries between private and work life, thus constantly being available for work purposes via social media, can cause negative psychological outcomes for individuals, such as concentration problems, strain, exhaustion, and burnout [1],[30]-[31].
Previous research has repeatedly found that invasion and other techno-stressors are negatively associated with technology-enabled productivity and performance at work [22],[25],[35]. Excessive social media use can stimulate technology–work conflicts and strain, which can reduce job performance [1]. When work can be always accessed, it can lead to social media exhaustion, resulting in decreased job performance [32]. These demands can erode the same resources that employees designate and use for other work tasks.
Job resources are positive psychological, physical, social, and organizational characteristics of work that are essential drivers of work engagement, for example, task variety and autonomy [36]-[38]. Work engagement is defined as a rewarding, comprehensive, and long-lasting affective-cognitive work-related state of mind [38]-[39]. Work engagement consists of three dimensions: vigor (e.g., mental resilience while working), dedication (e.g., enthusiasm), and absorption (e.g., full concentration on work) [38],[39]. Notably, social media usage can foster employees’ engagement with their work [14],[40],[41]. When employees experience work engagement, they are more likely to be proactive at work [37]. There are also studies regarding the association of work engagement, work productivity, and performance in different work contexts, such as among dentists [42] and teachers [43].
Burnout is an opposite concept to work engagement, also consisting of three dimensions: exhaustion (personal fatigue), cynicism (e.g., distance attitude toward work), and reduced professional efficacy (social and nonsocial work accomplishments) [44]. Job demands are work-related elements that require constant psychological or physical effort from employees, which can decrease work engagement and lead to strain, exhaustion, and burnout [36],[38],[45]. Increased job demands can diminish employees’ job resources and work engagement consequently, but sufficient resources can buffer strain and burnout [45]. Therefore, employees may have challenges balancing job demands, such as time management issues, increased workload, and cognitive burden due to social media [1],[15],[30], thus having fewer resources to keep them engaged at work. Strain can decrease work engagement and, in turn, lead to lower productivity [22]-[24].
Technology is easily invasive and thus, understanding technostress factors such as technology invasion as phenomena more thoroughly is crucial since they have rooted in workplace context [22],[46]-[47] and have raised concerns on how to lead employees’ wellbeing and support in mitigating stress [48]. Moreover, prior studies indicate that technostress can potentially have severe consequences for organizations’ bottom line, such as increased absenteeism and burnout, performance and productivity issues, weaker job satisfaction and commitment and higher intentions to leave, which should gain managerial attention [26],[49].
This article draws from technostress literature by focusing specifically on the concept of technology invasion [17],[26]. In addition, the study combines theories of work engagement, burnout and job demands and job resources [36],[38],[45]. In the context of this study, social media invasion is defined as the invasive effect of social media in work-related situations, where employees can be reached anytime and feel the need to be constantly connected, thus blurring boundaries between professional and personal contexts. This study extends the existing technostress research by longitudinally examining work-related social media invasion and its twofold well-being implications and social media-enabled productivity from technostress perspective, which have been previously unaddressed. We examine work-related social media invasion with longitudinal survey data from five time points collected half a year apart from one another. We propose the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Less social media invasion predicts high perceived social media-enabled productivity.
Hypothesis 2: High work exhaustion predicts low perceived social media-enabled productivity.
Hypothesis 3: High work engagement predicts high perceived social media-enabled productivity.