Internet interventions and therapies for addressing the negative impact of digital overuse: a focus on digital free tourism and economic sustainability

BACKGROUND

The excessive use of information technologies (IT) and online digital devices are causing symptoms of burnout, anxiety, stress and dependency that affect the physical and mental health of our society, extending to leisure time and work relationships. Digital free tourism (DFT) is a phenomenon that emerges as a solution to technostress and pathologies derived from digital hyperconnection. The objective of this research is to advance the knowledge of new structures of motivational factors that can understand the decision of a tourist to make a DFT trip. To this end, it is investigated whether family and social engagement and health and relaxation have a positive impact on the behavioral intention of the potential tourist and whether this influences sustainability due to the importance of DFT in the new economic framework.

METHODS

With a quantitative approach, the methodology used consisted of an online questionnaire among potential travelers. IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 statistical software was used to evaluate the data obtained and confirm the relationships of the model and the research hypotheses.

RESULTS

The results of the questionnaire assessed the contribution of each construct to the tourist's behavioral intention and the tourist's decision to make the decision to undertake a DFT experience.

CONCLUSIONS

DFT can be a driver of economic sustainability and health therapy in tourism in the digital age. This study aims to expand the lines of research on DFT and determine the complex factors that can lead a tourist to participate in the DFT experience. The results obtained can help managers of companies in the sector to offer more efficient and sustainable services that contribute to the health and wellbeing of tourists as a differentiating factor.

Impact of Technostress on Continuance Intentions to Use Mobile Technology

With rapid development of emerging technologies, teachers have been required to integrate mobile technology into their practices to improve learning outcomes. However, teachers have been reluctant to integrate technology into teaching because of technostress. Many studies have investigated the reasons and consequences of technostress in different contexts more than education, specifically teachers in K-12. To shed light on the boundary condition of using new technology, this study investigated technostress as a boundary condition that influences perceived usefulness for continuance intentions of using portable technology. Therefore, the authors introduced a model to describe the relationship among technostress, perceived usefulness, and K-12 teacher attitudes toward and continuance intentions to using mobile technology in the Palestinian context. 367 teachers from different backgrounds participated in the quantitative study. SPSS and AMOS were used to find the path coefficients of the model. The findings revealed that technostress has non-significant direct effects on continuance intentions of using portable technology, where perceived usefulness plays a crucial role in continuance intentions. Technostress has negative effects on both perceived usefulness and teachers’ attitudes toward mobile technology. Participants in the study were from northern Palestine, which limited generalizing the findings on other technological tools. Longitudinal future studies are recommended to understand the impact of perceived usefulness and its relationship with technostress, which is important to deepening our understanding of continuance intentions in using mobile technology.