How Does Technology Overload Impair Creativity Performance? The Mediating Roles Of Emotion and State Self-Control

Previous research has explored the relationship between technology overload and productivity of employees in the workplace, but little is known about its effect on creativity. To address this gap, we conducted two studies to investigate the association and underlying mechanism between technology overload and creativity performance. In Study 1, a cross-sectional design was used with 612 participants, while Study 2 employed a longitudinal diary design method with 66 participants spanning ten consecutive working days. We also explore the mediating roles of emotion and state self-control. Our findings indicated that both positive emotions and state self-control mediated the relationship between technology overload and creativity performance. Furthermore, we found that positive emotions–state self-control and negative emotions–state self-control played a chain mediating role in the relationship between technology overload and creativity performance. Interestingly, negative emotion mediated the relationship between technology overload and creativity performance in Study 1 but not in Study 2. These results contribute to deeper understanding of the effects of technology overload on creativity performance and provides insights into how organizations can protect employee creativity from the negative effects of technology overload. By enhancing positive emotions and state self-control, organizations could support creativity in workplace and foster a more innovative workforce.