The Changing Nature of Work in Digital Everyday Life

Throughout history, technology and innovation have reliably demonstrated their power to optimise human capability and efficiency. Robotics and digital technology occupy an integral space in global everyday life and human experience, operating as both a disruptive and an enabling force. While a steady and predictable increase in the reliance on technology was apparent prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, as it unfolded, the strategic and practical importance of technology to economic survival was profoundly reinforced. This chapter examines how digital technology has been leveraged to support increased organisational efficiency, but also how technological change has diminished the quality of work engagement and output. The implications of the ensuing changes for organisational learning, worker motivation, mental health and sense of organisational connectedness, also carry a quantifiable cost, which has been underexplored. The chapter proposes that the increasing integration of digital technology in everyday work life also has cognitive, psychosocial and affective components that contribute in important ways to understanding adaptive and maladaptive patterns of work engagement and productivity. Recommendations for future research directions are proposed, underscoring the relevance of these issues and the need for them to feature more readily in organisational planning, in work design initiatives, and in technology policy development.