The Impact of Technostress Generated by Artificial Intelligence on the Quality of Life: The Mediating Role of Positive and Negative Affect

In the era of Artificial Intelligence, the magic of achieving results at the "speed of light" for tasks that until recently required a lot of work and effort shocks, arouses enthusiasm and generates fears at the same time. Therefore, starting from this reality of our days, we proposed within the current research to study the relationship between the factors of technostress (techno-overload, techno-invasion, techno-complexity, techno-insecurity, techno-uncertainty) perceived as a result of the implementation of AI at the societal level and the quality of life, filtering the relationship through the "lens" of the positive and negative affect mediators. The mediation analyses, conducted on a sample of 217 adult Romanian citizens (18-62 years old), suggested that although AI-related technostress does not directly influence quality of life, it has a significant indirect impact through affective traits-general tendencies to frequently experience positive or negative emotions. This indicates that technostress contributes to variations in quality of life by influencing emotional experiences, which mediate the relationship. These findings emphasize not only the absence of a direct effect, but also the importance of the indirect pathway in understanding how individuals are affected by AI-related stress. We believe that the results of the current study can be equally useful in raising awareness of the psychological mechanisms responsible for the quality of life and in understanding the importance of implementing official programs, both technically, regarding the development of skills to understand and work with AI, and psychological support programs, considering the management of emotions, with reference to this technology.