Understanding Persuasion Mechanisms for Effective Communication in Online Educational Environments

This chapter aims at explaining the mechanisms of persuasion for effective communication in online educational environments. It starts by bringing awareness on the particularities of online educational environments and the psychological prerequisites of online studying. It tackles issues of digital skills as well as emotional intelligence abilities for online teaching, specific mindset and digital readiness, result expectations and assessment. Moreover, principles of microlearning and hybrid learning are explained as major approaches in online education. It then addresses issues related to technology-mediated communication with young ages vs. adults. It makes a brief analysis of mediated communication vs. direct communication in terms of adopted strategies according to age, adaptation of message, and feedback according to the online channel of factors affecting communication in online environments vs. face-to-face communication. Particular attention will be given to digital stress.

Stress and Anxiety in the Digital Age

While digitalization undoubtedly has improved the access to information and communication with the world, increased cases of cyberbullying, harassment, cyber abuse, and suicide numbers have also surfaced among teens. The hype of the online world, the celebrity culture, and their high status seldom generate the fear of inadequacy, dissatisfaction, and isolation which ultimately aggravate the feeling of anxiety and depression. This chapter will underline the causes of the digital stress and technology-related anxiety among adolescents, their deteriorating psychophysical behavior, factors disintegrating their mental fitness and physical well-being, and most importantly, the answer to the problem. Various small steps can be taken to avoid serious problems such as talking with your family and friends. Some other approaches include cutting off from the negative digital surroundings, limiting the watch time, etc. With the growing online world, there is an urgent need to control the exposure one gives to the social world.

High Impact Employee Stress Reduction and Wellness Promotion Delivered via Digital Mobile Technology in the Construction and Aviation Industries

To evaluate the impact of an on demand, digital mobile application deployed via smartphone on subjectively perceived and objectively measured stress levels of employee participants in a mobile digital stress reduction program within two corporate enterprises, as well as on self-reported wellness indicators.

Risk factors for digital stress in German public administrations

Objective As the digitization of the working world progresses, the demands on employees change. Not least, this is true for the setting of public administrations in Germany, which is currently affected by the transformation to E-Government. This study aims to identify and describe a risk cluster of digitally stressed employees in public administrations. Methods An online sample of 710 employees from three public administrations in North Rhine-Westphalia were surveyed about digital stress (7 items) and several potential risk factors (19 items) derived from the current research. In the first step, a hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis is used to detect the risk cluster. This is followed by a comparison to the group of the remaining employees regarding their risk profiles. Results The analysis states that the digitally stressed cluster accounts for approximately ten percent of the public administration’s employees of the total sample. Employees in the risk cluster are less satisfied with on-site work overall, experience less collegial support on-site, experience less collegial support in the home office, resign more often, are more likely to feel overwhelmed, are less educated, are older in age and more often have relatives in need of care. Conclusion This work was able to identify and describe a group of digitally stressed rather than left-behind employees in public administrations to bring awareness to potentially destructive factors in the digital transformation process but eventually to social inequalities. The findings offer the basis for interventions to arise and evoke potential for further research.

Investigating the Persuasive Effects of Testimonials on the Acceptance of Digital Stress Management Trainings Among University Students and Underlying Mechanisms: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: This experiment aims to investigate the influence of narrative information varying in the degree of perceived similarity and source credibility in supplemented testimonials on the acceptance of digital mental health services (digi-MHSs).Methods: In fall 2020, n=231 university students were randomly assigned to an active control group (aCG, n=55, “information only”) or one of three intervention groups (IGs) receiving information plus different testimonials being presented either by nonacademic staff (IG1, n=60), university students (IG2, n=58) or experts (IG3, n=58). We assessed mediation effects of similarity and credibility on acceptance in terms of attitudes and usage intentions.Results: Exposure to testimonials was associated with higher usage intentions (d=0.50) and more positive attitudes toward digi-MHSs (d=0.32) compared to mere information (aCG). Regarding source-related effects, one-way ANOVA showed group differences in intentions (ηp2=0.13) that were significantly higher after exposure to testimonials targeted at students than in the other groups after adjusting for baseline intentions (ηp2=0.24). Concerning underlying mechanisms, there were full mediation effects of similarity (IG1 versus IG2) on attitudes [95%CI (0.030, 0.441)] and intentions to use digi-MHSs [95%CI (0.100, 0.528)] and of credibility on attitudes [IG2 versus IG3; 95%CI (−0.217, −0.004)], all favoring students’ testimonials.Conclusion: Overall, this study indicates that the acceptance of digi-MHSs can be substantially increased by providing a simple, context-sensitive information intervention, including testimonials by university students. Since we identified mediating effects of credibility on cognitive attitudes and similarity on affect-driven intentions, a future trial could vary these features using narrative versus statistic information on digi-MHSs.

Digital stress: Concept, structure, and development of a digital stress scale

People suffer from stress or digital stress when using information communication technology. However, few tools have been developed to capture this phenomenon. The concept of digital stress has remained controversial. This preregistered study aims to reflect and clarify the concept of digital stress and to develop a digital stress scale for adolescents. This study integrated qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore the structure of digital stress and develop a digital stress scale. First, we theoretically proposed the digital stress item pool based on current theories of digital stress and the definition of digital stress. Then, we conducted focus groups and in-depth interviews (N=41) to revise the items in the item pool. Lastly, we finalized the scale based on the data collected from three independent samples of adolescents (Nsample1=1088, Nsample2=879, Nsample3=176). The results revealed six dimensions of digital stress among adolescents: unsatisfactory information and communication, unmet recreational motivation, online learning burden, social concerns, useless and overloaded notifications, and online verbal attacks. The scale showed robust reliability (2=.851 to .959), stability (test-retest reliability =.717 to .681, p < .001), and validity (construct validity: X2= 2107.978, df = 387, CFI = .932, TLI = .923, RMSEA = .064; correlation with anxiety and depression is .431 to .462, p < .001). The developed scale is reliable in measuring digital stress in adolescents, especially when few measures exist. Limitations, implications, and guidance for future research are discussed.

Risk Factors for Digital Stress in German Public Administrations

Objective: While the digitization of the working world progresses, the demands on employees are changing. Not least this is true for the setting of public administrations in Germany which is currently affected by the transformation to E-Government. This study aims at identifying and describing a risk cluster of digitally stressed employees in those public administrations. Methods: An online sample of 710 employees from three public administrations in North Rhine-Westphalia was asked about digital stress (7 items) and several potential risk factors (19 items) which were derived from current research. In a first step, a hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis is used to detect the risk cluster. This is followed by a comparison to the group of the remaining employees regarding their risk profiles. Results: The analysis states, that the cluster of digitally stressed takes around ten percent of the public administration’s employees of the total sample. Employees in the risk cluster are less satisfied with on-site work overall, experience less collegial support on-site, experience less collegial support in the home office, resign more often, are more likely to feel overwhelmed, are less educated, are older in age and more often have relatives in need of care.Conclusion: This work managed to identify and describe a group of digitally stressed, rather than left-behind employees in public administrations to bring awareness to potentially destructive factors in the digital transformation process, but eventually to social inequalities as well. The findings offer the basis for interventions to arise as well as it evokes potential for further research.

Situational boundary conditions of digital stress: Goal conflict and autonomy frustration make smartphone use more stressful

Permanent connectedness via smartphones can negatively affect users by eliciting stress. Past research focused on the stress-inducing potential of overt behaviours, such as communication load and media multitasking. The cognitive engagement with online interactions (online vigilance) has only recently received attention. Additionally, previous findings were inconsistent, suggesting that conditional effects may be at play. A preregistered experience sampling study (N = 130; 1,427 use episodes) investigated relationships of cognitive (online vigilance) and behavioural (communication load, media multitasking) smartphone use patterns with perceived stress and introduced two situational boundary conditions (goal conflict, autonomy need dissatisfaction). Results demonstrate the strong potential of the mental salience of online interactions to induce stress. By increasing communication load, online vigilance indirectly predicted stress. Goal conflict and autonomy need dissatisfaction moderated the influence of online vigilance and media multitasking on perceived stress. Findings are discussed in the context of social pressures and self-control of smartphone use.