Cybercology

Digital Technology and Human Psychology Research

Cybercology Research

Current Research:

‘What strategies do professionals use in their day-to-day management of their work and personal commitments through the use of both personal and professional technology’.

Remote and Hybrid Work Boundary Blurring Strategies

Remote working during Covid-19 has impacted individuals in different ways.

 Some studies show that individuals used a range of strategies to manage their work-home boundaries during the time of lockdowns, while others find that such segmentation strategies may have been abandoned altogether among some working parents.

Since then, hybrid working has become a new norm for many professionals and many businesses are continuing flexible working arrangements. 

This study aims to understand how professionals use technology to manage their professional and personal responsibilities and the strategies they use to delineate their work and home boundaries. There is little research in this area at present. 

This project is affiliated with the University of Buckingham and there are no funding partners associated with this research. The results of this study can be beneficial to inform practices by organisational psychologists, HR professionals, managers or workers themselves by highlighting how individuals manage their work- and home-based technology in the pursuit of maintaining a better work-life balance. 

This research has received ethics approval from the University of Buckingham. 

If you would like to be involved or would like a copy of the final research report, please get in touch and we will message you directly with the details. 

Researchers: Dr Maša Popovac and Carolyn Freeman

Previous Research: 
Always On, Always Available: Working Parent's use of business and personal technology during private hours, and the impact of e-communication overload on stress and anxiety and perceived burnout (Freeman, C., 2021)

The MSc research was conducted during the first Lockdown of 2020 (Spring and early Summer of 2020) when both knowledge worker parents and their children were told to ‘stay at home’. Full-time working parents were expected to navigate the challenges of Working from Home and simultaneously home-schooling their children.

The research aim was to understand how full-time knowledge worker parents layered their personal and professional technology use during this time, and what impact this had on their stress anxiety and levels of potential burnout. 

Other Academic Research Summaries

Research on the impact of technology on human behaviour and psychology in the workplace has been conducted in a number of different academic disciplines, across a variety of countries and within different industrial/organisational contexts.

The research featured here may be directly or indirectly psychologically or behaviourally related to the use of technology by ‘knowledge workers’ (i.e. those who use technology to produce knowledge-based assets for profit or non-profit organisations). It 

The summaries below highlight, in one way or another, the impact of when, why and how technology is used in our general ‘work, home and play’ – from a psychological and behavioural perspective.

Work-Home Boundary Blurring

Hybrid, Remote and Flexible Working Culture, Policies and Practices

Three Generations of Telework: New ICTs and the (R)evolution from Home Office to Virtual Office (Messenger, J., Lutz, G., 2016)

This research is a deep dive into how revolutions in digital technology have evolved through three main stages since 1970 to present including the: Home Office, Mobile Office and Virtual Office.

Autonomy, Flexibility and Job Control

Presence at Home and Family Impact

Killing me softly: Electronic communications monitoring and employee and significant other well-being

This research covers 

Productivity, Attention and Impact on Work

Technological Tethering, Digital Natives, and Challenges in the Work-Family Interface (Nevin, A., Schieman, S., 2020)

This Canadian-based research investigates whether generational digital familiarity alters the use of technology during private time.

Are communications about work outside regular working hours associated with work-to-family conflict, psychological distress and sleep problems? (Schieman, S., Young, M., 2013)

This research investigates how engaging in work-based activities outside of working hours may lead to increased levels of conflict with the family and issues with sleep.

The Mere Presence of a Cell Phone May Be Distracting: Implications for Attention and Task Performance (Thornton, B., Alyson, F., Maija, R., Rollins, E., 2014)

Previous research has shown that using a phone can be distracting while multi-tasking, such as while walking or driving. Recent research has even shown that the simple presence of a phone (e.g. placed on a table), with all the connections and networks that it represents, can distract from in-person physical social interactions and connections. This research goes a step further to investigate the distracting capability of mobile phones while performing tasks that require greater cognitive demands within the workplace (and in education). 

The Paradox of Family Structure and Plans after Work: Why Single Childless Employees May Be the Least Absorbed at Work

There is a perception that spending more time in the office is equated to higher productivity levels. This research study explores which category of workers are, indeed, the most productive.

Contrary to popular perceptions, parents with external work responsibilities are generally the most productive during each working day.

Information CyberSecurity

Academic Research Resources
UK-based Resources
BPS CyberPsych section website

The British Psychology CyberPsychology Section are a wealth of academic-based resources and recommendations including, but not limited to: 

  • Book recommendations
  • Models, scales and measures
  • Teaching resources
  • Tools
USA-based Resources
TMB website

Technology, Mind and Behaviour Journal (American Psychology Association Open Access Journal) has joined the Science Open Platform. 

‘Technology, Mind, and Behavior (TMB) is an open access, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association and launched in 2020. TMB publishes original work in the area of human-technology interaction with a focus on human behavior at the individual or group level.’

Research Articles