Unraveling the Path from Digital Fatigue to Workplace Thriving: A Serial Mediation Model Based on the Job Demands–Resources Framework

Abstract

The widespread integration of digital technologies has heightened employees' exposure to incessant connectivity and information overload, increasing the risk of digital fatigue and compromising sustainable work performance. Utilizing Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) theory, this study investigates the impact of digital fatigue on workplace thriving via the sequential mediating roles of cognitive depletion and digital recovery self-efficacy. We gathered time-lagged survey data from 245 employees who worked in four- and five-star hotels in major cities in Pakistan. We then used PLS-SEM to look at the data. The findings reveal that digital fatigue negatively affects workplace thriving and positively anticipates cognitive depletion.  Cognitive depletion consequently reduces employees’ digital recovery self-efficacy, while digital recovery self-efficacy positively correlates with workplace thriving. Crucially, the results validate an important sequential mediation pathway that reduces recovery-related beliefs and cognitive depletion, which are two ways that digital fatigue undermines thriving. In addition to highlighting digital recovery self-efficacy as a crucial psychological resource for maintaining employee vitality and learning, this study applies JD-R theory to digitally intensive work contexts.