Digital Transformation Stress (DTS)

Updated 25 October 2025

Digital Transformation Stress (DTS) is a multidimensional phenomenon characterized by rapid digital adoption that triggers psychological, organizational, and societal challenges.
Measurement approaches include psychometric scales like the Digital Transformation Stress Scale (DTSS) and behavioral analyses such as ICT usage metrics, offering both subjective and objective insights.
Organizational interventions—such as targeted training, inclusive change management, and digital literacy programs—are key to mitigating DTS and supporting effective digital transformation.

Digital Transformation Stress (DTS) is a domain-specific stressor emerging from the rapid and pervasive adoption of digital technologies and processes within institutions, industries, and societies. Distinct from general technostress, DTS encompasses psychological, organizational, and societal responses to the challenges introduced by digital transformation (DT), including impacts on workforce capabilities, operational practices, policy execution, well-being, and equity.

1. Dimensions and Characterization of DTS

DTS manifests as a multi-layered phenomenon, arising from technical, behavioral, cultural, and policy-driven constraints. Research distinguishes internal sources—such as insufficient strategy formulation, organizational inertia, and skill gaps—from external ones, including market volatility, digital divides, and stakeholder complexity (Alenezi, 2022, Halttunen, 22 Feb 2024). DTS is aggravated by increased job demands, persistent expectations for digital availability, and pressures to quickly develop new competencies, often with uneven distribution across workforce segments and social groups (Makowska-Tłumak et al., 18 Oct 2025, Atrian et al., 2023).

Specific components of DTS include:

Availability Demand Stress: The perceived need for constant connectivity and responsiveness.
Approval Anxiety: Anxiety linked to seeking validation in digital social contexts.
Fear of Missing Out (FoMO): Concern over exclusion from rewarding online experiences (Alshakhsi et al., 14 Oct 2025).
Technological Complexity, Uncertainty, Overload, and Insecurity: As defined in the technostress literature, these capture the impact of evolving tools, ambiguous expectations, and perceived threats from technological advancement (Atrian et al., 2023, Fleron et al., 30 Aug 2024).

2. Measurement and Modeling

DTS is assessed both quantitatively and behaviorally. Psychometric scales, such as the Digital Transformation Stress Scale (DTSS) and the Multidimensional Digital Stress Scale (DSS), capture subjective stress along dimensions including job performance and well-being (Makowska-Tłumak et al., 18 Oct 2025, Alshakhsi et al., 14 Oct 2025). Sentiment analysis of organizational communication—e.g., help desk tickets—has been used to objectively monitor “ICT helplessness” and negative sentiment, revealing behavioral clues to stress disparities across employee groups (Makowska-Tłumak et al., 18 Oct 2025).

Frameworks and mathematical representations further systematize DTS:

Conceptual Equations: Stress level in institutions is modeled as $S \propto (C-F)$ , where $S$ is stress, $C$ cumulative challenges, and $F$ mitigating success factors or interventions (Alenezi, 2022).
Job Performance Model:

$JP = \alpha - \beta \cdot TS + \gamma \cdot CM + \epsilon,$

with $JP$ job performance, $TS$ technostress/DTS, $CM$ coping mechanisms, and $\epsilon$ unexplained variability (Atrian et al., 2023).

Behavioral Markers: Fine-grained web/app usage metrics (screen time, semantic category engagement, temporal patterns) serve as predictors and monitors of stress (Belal et al., 21 May 2025).
Systemic DTS Impact:

$\text{DTS Impact} = f(\text{Business Models}_{\{E,S,I\}}, \text{Products}_{\{E,S,I\}}, \text{Lifecycles}_{\{E,S,I\}}, \text{Methods}_{\{E,S,I\}})$

with dimensions Environmental (E), Societal (S), and Individual (I) (Halttunen, 22 Feb 2024).

3. Organizational Stressors and Workforce Impacts

DT initiatives disrupt established routines, often introducing uncertainty, role ambiguity, and heightened demands for rapid adaptation. The lack of a thorough, purpose-driven digital strategy and inadequate change management represent significant contributors to DTS (Alenezi, 2022, Fleron et al., 30 Aug 2024). Survey data indicate that over 30% of government respondents identified organizational change as the largest barrier to digital transformation (Alenezi, 2022). Workforce stress is compounded by expectations to master new ICT skills and manage increased workload intensity; these effects disproportionately impact groups facing stereotype threat, such as women in ICT-heavy environments, where both self-reported and behavioral evidence show elevated DTS (Makowska-Tłumak et al., 18 Oct 2025).

Leadership transformation and workforce capability development are essential mitigating factors. Organizations benefit from clear digital upskilling programs, participatory decision-making, and creating environments supportive of experimentation and adaptation (Atrian et al., 2023, Alenezi, 2022).

4. Societal, Economic, and Gender Implications

DTS is implicated in broader social and economic processes. Digital transformation propels service improvements, business growth, and citizen engagement, but mismanaged initiatives exacerbate digital divides, privacy breaches, and mental health burdens (Halttunen, 22 Feb 2024, Alenezi, 2022). Only 76 of 193 UN member states offer full nationwide web access, exemplifying the scale of the digital divide and the risks of uneven transformation outcomes (Alenezi, 2022).

Gender disparities are particularly pronounced in the context of ICT transformation. Statistical analyses (Student’s t-test: $t(25)=2.70$ , $p=.012$ ) confirm that female employees report higher DTS and demonstrate greater ICT helplessness in help desk communications, driven by pervasive negative stereotypes and lower self-efficacy. Hybrid measurement approaches using sentiment analysis and psychological scales provide robust insights for policy and intervention (Makowska-Tłumak et al., 18 Oct 2025).

5. Coping Mechanisms, Strategic Interventions, and Behavioral Change

Active mitigation of DTS involves individual coping strategies and organizational interventions, such as:

Continuous technical support and targeted training.
Inclusive change management that integrates human factors and skills development.
Policy modifications limiting unnecessary information overload and promoting employee input into technological change (Atrian et al., 2023, Fleron et al., 30 Aug 2024).
Reflective digital stress management, as explored in protégé-based interventions, wherein “learning by teaching” deepens cognitive engagement but is often insufficient to effect sustained behavioral change without further motivation, peer interaction, or self-regulatory components (Alshakhsi et al., 14 Oct 2025).
Use of digital literacy programs and participatory workshops designed to build ICT self-efficacy, challenge stereotypes, and offer tailored support—these are especially important in ICT-intensive and gender-diverse contexts (Makowska-Tłumak et al., 18 Oct 2025).

Despite significant reduction in digital stress following exposure or reflection interventions (e.g., $F(1,133)=44.051$ , $p<.001$ , $\eta^2_p=0.249$ ), translating increased awareness into lasting behavior modification remains a key challenge. Ingrained digital habits and socially reinforced stressors are persistent limiting factors (Alshakhsi et al., 14 Oct 2025).

6. Sectoral and Technological Contexts

DTS extends across multiple domains, including government, maritime, and ICT-oriented industries. In the maritime sector, the interplay between technostress and resistance to change is salient: automation reduces crew sizes but exacerbates mental health risks through workload intensification and isolation, with inadequate attention to comprehensive change management and human factors (Fleron et al., 30 Aug 2024). In digital government transformation, organized information, stakeholder engagement, and leadership capacity are vital to alleviate stress and ensure strategic alignment (Alenezi, 2022).

Role allocation and collaboration between digital twin technologies and human operators further illustrate the need for systematic frameworks (e.g., Levels of Digital Twin—LoDT) to plan, communicate, and evolve function and responsibility allocations, minimizing abrupt transformation shocks (Agrawal et al., 2023).

7. Future Directions and Research Challenges

Ongoing research calls for expanding analysis of DTS across diverse populations, cultural contexts, and longitudinal time frames with objective and validated stress assessment methodologies (Belal et al., 21 May 2025). There is a need for richer models of stress propagation and mitigation, integration of digital behavioral markers into mental health support systems, and exploration of interactive or peer-based formats in interventions. Sustainability and systemic responsibility should inform every aspect of digital transformation policy and design, with environmental, social, and individual repercussions considered in concert (Halttunen, 22 Feb 2024).

Interventions must address not only cognitive awareness but also the behavioral and contextual mechanisms maintaining digital stress, with particular attention to gender, age, social background, and the rapidly evolving digital ecosystem.

DTS represents a rigorous, multidisciplinary research and operational challenge. Its investigation spans psychological, organizational, technical, and societal layers, demanding integrated measurement, careful change management, and tailored interventions to optimize the outcomes of digital transformation for institutions and individuals.