Virtually Alone: Exploring the Effects of Technology and Job Design on Loneliness in Remote Work Arrangements

Recent literature has established the high rates of loneliness being experienced by remote workers. Despite more research being conducted on alternative work arrangements, a comparison between the three primary work models (in-person, hybrid, fully virtual) and their subsequent effects on workplace loneliness remains unexplored. To bridge this gap, this study examined the relationship between workplace loneliness levels and the three primary work models. Drawing on Sociotechnical Systems Theory, social job design characteristics and communication mediums were examined as moderators to workplace loneliness. To complement this, data was also collected on which information communication technology (ICT) employees use most often. A total of 305 employees from the three work models were surveyed. The results showed that as virtuality of the work arrangement increased so did workplace loneliness. None of the social job design characteristics emerged as significant moderators when using the combined workplace loneliness scale; however, exploratory findings revealed significant moderation effects for the social job design characteristics and the sub-scales of workplace loneliness, primarily for the characteristic of social support. Compositional data analysis (CoDA) methods revealed that generally, greater usages of communication mediums that were higher in technology-mediation (e.g., email) relative to mediums that were lower (e.g., face-to-face, videoconferencing) strengthened the effect of work arrangement virtuality on workplace loneliness. Broadly, Microsoft Teams was the most widely used ICT. These results suggest that redesigning remote work to integrate opportunities for social interaction and the use of less technologically mediated channels of communication may assist in protecting remote workers from workplace loneliness.

Name thesis:degree_name

M Sc

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Western Ontario

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Baer, Jessica

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Weststar, Johanna

• Remote work models
• workplace loneliness
• job design
• communication mediums
• information communication technologies
• compositional data analysis

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/38813

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwo.scholaris.ca:20.500.14721/38813