The Potential of Technology in Facilitating Positive Stress Experiences

The positive side of stress, eustress, has remained an understudied area in psychology, health technology and HCI. Based on 21 qualitative interviews with entrepreneurs on their positive stress experiences, we aim at providing implications for technology-supported service design. First, we shed light on the current role of technology in experiencing positive stress in the everyday work-related situations of entrepreneurs. Second, the potential of technology is assessed by analysing entrepreneurs' mind-sets and the ways of working which they perceive as enablers for eustress and which could be facilitated by novel technological solutions. Our findings show that the potential of technology for supporting eustress includes areas such as co-creation and collaboration, planning and scheduling, togetherness and shared success, the means for mental preparing and ways to recover.