The rise of technostress–and how leaders can empower teams to reach technojoy
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The rise of technostress – and how leaders can empower teams to reach technojoy
Neal Riley
Published on 6 October 2025
6 min read
Neal Riley
Published on 6 October 2025
6 min read
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Quiet cracking explained
Understanding the 'why'
The reality of digital overwhelm
What is technostress?
What is technojoy?
The human cost of digital transformation: An Adaptavist report
This research report from Adaptavist uncovers how tooling, processes, and language can both exacerbate and solve the issue of 'quiet cracking', the silent risk impeding team engagement and digital transformation success.
Explore how technostress and quiet cracking impact worker well-being with our latest research, and learn strategies to foster technojoy, boosting employee engagement and transformation success.
You've probably heard of 'quiet quitting', whereby employees do the bare minimum to meet their job description, but what about 'quiet cracking'? It's a relatively new workplace phenomenon that is currently affecting swathes of knowledge workers—maybe your team and maybe even you.
Quiet cracking is a persistent feeling of workplace unhappiness that can lead to disengagement, poor performance, and an increased desire to quit. Unlike quiet quitting, which is usually self-motivated and intentional, quiet cracking happens slowly, subtly, and against employees' wishes—and it's happening a lot.
According to research recently conducted by Adaptavist, almost half (47%) of knowledge workers have experienced a change in performance or focus over the last 12 months–one of the key symptoms of quiet cracking. Other symptoms include reduced confidence and motivation, emotional withdrawal, feeling hopeless about career progression, and fears around job security.
Why the 'why' of work is so important
So, what's driving the rise in quiet cracking? Strategic rationale is one key differentiator between those who experience its symptoms and those who don't, according to our brand new research report, The Human Cost of Digital Transformation.
And younger workers are disproportionately affected—more than a quarter (27%) of 18–24 year olds say they only 'sometimes understand' the rationale behind the tasks they're doing tasks at work.
Why is this important? People who understand the 'why' behind the work they're doing are less likely to experience quiet cracking symptoms. For example, 55% of those who don't understand the reason behind their assigned tasks reported reduced motivation, while only 33% of those who knew their overarching purpose did.
The research also found that when people don't understand why they're spending time on a particular project or task, they're also more likely to suffer from technology-related stress and anxiety in the workplace.
The harsh reality of digital overwhelm
As businesses struggle to stay competitive, technology-driven transformation has become central to modernising and streamlining work processes. But what effect is it having on knowledge workers?
The majority of our research respondents (71%) said they felt technology was implemented thoughtfully in their workplace. But what about:
- The 64% that said technology had negatively impacted their lives in the past year
- The 27% that said they often or always feel overwhelmed by digital noise, or
- The 43% that said that getting too many notifications or being asked to use too many different platforms causes them stress and anxiety?
These are people experiencing technostress.
What is technostress?
Technostress occurs when workers feels overwhelmed by constant connectivity, the pressure to keep up with new tools and platforms, and cognitive overload from notifications and information. It's having a dramatic effect on some workers, causing burnout, sickness-related absences, and even resignations.
Our research showed that 23% of knowledge workers had looked for a new job as a direct result of workplace technology. And a not-insignificant 5% had actually quit because of it. Extrapolate that data out from our sample of 4,000 people to Gartner's suggestion that there are one billion knowledge workers globally, and that's as many as five million people who have left a job in the last year because of technostress.
Happy workers get more out of technology
Our research has revealed that happy employees report that technology is driving better collaboration, career outcomes, and greater task autonomy. These are people who say they feel 'energised and motivated' by their work environment.
93% of happy workers (vs the global average of 79%) said that either they or their colleagues integrated technology into collaborative work effectively.
Survey results
These people said that either they or their colleagues had integrated technology into collaborative work effectively. There's clearly a correlation between organisational culture and the path to 'technojoy'.
What is technojoy?
As the name suggests, technojoy is the antithesis of technostress. It's the positive experience employees have when technology and processes are effectively implemented, adopted, and supported.
To achieve technojoy, organisations need to create a culture where:
- People are comfortable asking for help
- There's a clear and continuous connection between leadership and the general workforce
- There's a clear and continuous connection between organisational strategy and team-level execution
All of this helps teams understand the 'why' behind their work.
It might not be a case of adopting fewer tools, either. Only 18% of our survey respondents saw reducing tools as an important action for their employers to take. What is crucial is ensuring there's enough training, resources, and technical support in place – this was a priority for 43% of respondents – enabling employees to feel empowered, and adoption to thrive.
The journey from technostress to technojoy
Our latest research report shines a light on the importance of addressing quiet cracking head-on. It's silently but aggressively eating away at your employees' confidence and motivation, causing them to feel hopeless about their careers and fearful about their job security. And technostress is widening those cracks.
Digital transformation rollouts don't fail because of bad technology, but because of poor change management and a lack of engagement. You can't just focus on selecting the right tools. While important, you have to put as much (if not more) energy into the human elements. That means proper onboarding and support, processes that don't alienate teams, and creating a supportive culture around new technology and preserving worker autonomy so people feel in control of which tasks to do and how to do them.
With this approach, you can prevent burnout and disengagement, prevent technostress before it has a chance to take hold, and build a culture of happy workers filled with technojoy.
Put a stop to technostress
Read the full report to discover expert guidance and best practices for preventing quiet cracking and ensuring your teams are empowered, not turned off, by technology.
The human cost of digital transformation: An Adaptavist report
This research report from Adaptavist uncovers how tooling, processes, and language can both exacerbate and solve the issue of 'quiet cracking', the silent risk impeding team engagement and digital transformation success.
Written by
Co-Founder and GM, Salable
Neal was previously the CIO for Adaptavist and is a technology and AI expert. Still within The Adaptavist Group, Neal is Co-Founder and General Manager for Salable, an all-in-one SaaS monetisation platform.