Chinese version of the employee digital disconnection scale: development and validation

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Digital Well-being
• Mental Health in the Workplace

Background:

• The "always on" digital workplace culture increases employee psychological burden and negatively impacts mental health.
• Digital disconnection is a self-regulation strategy to mitigate stress from constant connectivity.
• A lack of effective measurement tools hinders research on digital disconnection in the Chinese organizational context, especially within its collectivist culture.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the structural dimensions and measurement of employee digital disconnection within the Chinese organizational context.
• To develop and validate a reliable scale for measuring digital disconnection among Chinese employees.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a questionnaire survey method.
• Analyzed 795 questionnaires in a two-stage process to establish scale properties.

Main Results:

• Developed the Chinese Version of the Employee Digital Disconnection Scale (Chinese-EDDS).
• The Chinese-EDDS comprises four dimensions: digital disconnection from private ICTs outside work (DD POW), work-related ICTs outside work (DD WOW), private ICTs during work (DD PDW), and work-related ICTs during work (DD WDW).
• The scale demonstrated good reliability and validity.

Conclusions:

• The study provides a validated quantitative tool for assessing employee digital disconnection in China.
• This scale can aid organizations in developing interventions and training to enhance employee mental health and well-being.