Background
Digital technologies have become an integral part of working life. Social media, instant messaging and workplace communication and collaboration platforms are widely used for professional communication, information sharing and maintaining social relationships. More recently, artificial intelligence and generative AI have introduced new ways of producing information, supporting decision-making, automating tasks and collaborating with technology at work.
WorkSome originally focused particularly on professional social media use and its implications for employee wellbeing. As technologies and working practices have changed, the scope of the research has expanded to other forms of digital and AI-mediated work.
Digital technologies can provide new resources for employees and organizations, for example by facilitating communication, access to information, learning and task performance. At the same time, they may create new demands and risks, including information overload, technostress, blurred work–life boundaries, concerns about job continuity, and challenges related to trust, privacy and the use of data. WorkSome investigates these developments from a longitudinal perspective.
Goal
The aim of WorkSome is to understand how the use of social media, artificial intelligence and other digital technologies at work develops over time and how these developments are associated with employee wellbeing, working practices and organizational experiences.
The project began with focus group interviews (N = 52) and an online survey conducted in five expert organizations in 2018. The nationwide longitudinal survey began in 2019 with 1,817 Finnish employees from diverse occupational fields and continues through repeated follow-up surveys.
The longitudinal design makes it possible to examine changes in both technology and working life. New topics can be introduced as technologies develop while key measures are retained across survey waves to allow longitudinal comparisons.
The research covers topics such as:
- social media and digital communication at work
- artificial intelligence and generative and agentic AI at work
- technology use, task delegation and human oversight of AI
- trust in AI systems and technology providers
- privacy, data-related risks and willingness to provide AI systems with access to information
- work engagement, job demands and job resources
- work-related wellbeing, psychological strain and burnout
- technostress and boundaries between work and non-work life
- organizational identification and social relationships at work
- cyberbullying and other negative experiences in digital working environments.
The project is part of Tampere University’s Emerging Technologies Lab and Work Research Centre.
The project is part of Tampere University’s Emerging Technologies Lab.
Impact
WorkSome provides organizations, researchers and society with longitudinal information on how digital technologies are becoming embedded in working life and how employees experience these changes.
The findings can help organizations develop evidence-based practices for the use of social media, artificial intelligence and other workplace technologies. The research highlights both potential benefits—such as improved access to information, communication, learning and task support—and potential challenges related to workload, wellbeing, trust, privacy, organizational practices and the changing boundaries between human and technology-mediated work.
The project contributes to research in social psychology, work and organizational psychology, human–technology interaction, behavioural science and related fields by providing long-term evidence on technological change in working life.
Funding
The research has received funding from the Finnish Work Environment Fund, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, and Tampere University.
Archived research data
WorkSome is committed to making research data available for further scientific use. Selected datasets from the project have been archived in the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) and are available for research, teaching and study. The currently archived datasets are:
Social Media at Work: Organisational Survey 2018 (FSD3984)
The dataset contains the project’s 2018 survey conducted among employees of five Finnish expert organisations.
Social Media at Work: Finnish Employee Survey 2019 (FSD3985)
The dataset contains the nationwide Finnish employee survey conducted in 2019.
Further information, documentation and access to the datasets are available through the Finnish Social Science Data Archive’s Aila Data Service.