Sociability and Technostress in Online Classes: The Effects on Students’ Emotional Exhaustion During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The move to online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led students in high schools to experience new issues because of their constant use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). One of the consequences of constant ICT use is emotional exhaustion, which is raised or limited by different factors. Sociability is one of the factors that might decrease emotional exhaustion in students during online classes, while technostress could further it. Moreover, technostress creators could act as moderators on the effect of sociability on emotional exhaustion. These effects are tested with the help of a study with 592 participants, discovering that the sociability in online classes has an effect on how emotionally exhausted the students are. The antecedent technostress also has an effect on emotional exhaustion, thus furthering it. This paper contributes to the information systems (IS) literature by showing how students are affected by constant ICT use.