The Digital Dignity Divide: Work, Technology, and Well-Being Outcomes Among U.S. Employees

Well-being outcomes for workers in the United States have worsened in recent years. However, the role that workers’ experiences with digital technologies may play in this trend is underexplored. Thus, using data from 10 focus groups ( n = 67) and an original survey with workers in the United States ( n = 4,898), we explore the impact of technology on workers’ self-assessments of emotional health and burnout levels. Focus groups revealed that workers perceive technology to be making their work lives more challenging, leading to frustration and burnout. In addition, workers attested that suboptimal working conditions relate to diminished confidence around their technological skills. Regarding quantitative findings, logistic regression models constructed for the survey data demonstrate that compared to salaried workers with a positive relationship to technology, both salaried workers with a negative relationship to technology and hourly paid workers (regardless of their relationship to technology) professed elevated levels of burnout at work. Taken together, we theorize that our results suggest the existence of a “digital dignity divide” in which orientation toward technology matters when it comes to whether workers feel valued and respected at work (and vice versa). In turn, feeling a lack of dignity related to digital technologies at work has an impact on overall emotional well-being.