Digital Overload and the Right to Recover: A Multidisciplinary Review of Attention, Boundaries and Sustainable Performance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68050/JAMS.2026.594Keywords:
digital overload; recovery; technostress; attention; right to disconnect; sustainable performanceAbstract
Digital work has expanded flexibility and access while simultaneously increasing interruption, boundary permeability and the expectation of constant responsiveness. This review synthesizes research on technostress, recovery, attention and occupational well-being to examine digital overload as an organizational design problem. The article proposes a three-layer model distinguishing volume overload, boundary overload and vigilance overload. Volume overload concerns the quantity of digital inputs; boundary overload arises when work repeatedly enters recovery time; vigilance overload reflects the cognitive cost of anticipating messages and alerts even when no message is being processed. The paper argues that individual coping strategies are insufficient when communication norms and work design continuously reproduce overload. It presents organizational interventions involving channel architecture, response-time norms, meeting discipline, protected recovery and leadership modelling. The review concludes that the right to recover should be understood as a condition for sustainable performance, learning and health rather than as an opposition to productivity.Keywords: digital overload; recovery; technostress; attention; right to disconnect; sustainable performance
References
Barber, L. K., & Santuzzi, A. M. (2015). Please respond ASAP: Workplace telepressure and employee recovery. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(2), 172–189.
Derks, D., van Mierlo, H., & Schmitz, E. B. (2014). A diary study on work-related smartphone use, psychological detachment and exhaustion. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 19(1), 74–84.
European Parliament. (2021). Resolution on the right to disconnect (2019/2181(INL)). European Parliament.
Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. Proceedings of CHI 2008, 107–110.
Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(3), 204–221.
Tarafdar, M., Tu, Q., Ragu-Nathan, B. S., & Ragu-Nathan, T. S. (2007). The impact of technostress on role stress and productivity. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(1), 301–328.
World Health Organization. (2022). World mental health report: Transforming mental health for all. WHO.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Articles published in the Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Studies (JAMS) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise stated. Authors retain copyright of their work and grant JAMS the right of first publication.
