Maritime 4.0 developments and investigation of technostress levels of seafarers in Turkey

In the maritime industry especially from the 2000s fast development and changes happened. Digitalization, which has emerged in the light of these developments, is very importance in terms of implementing the operations and decision-making processes of businesses accurately and quickly. In order to respond to the increasing trade and market volume in the maritime sector, ships and ports are trying to carry out their operations faster and with fewer errors by taking advantage of the new technologies brought by Industry 4.0. Technological developments, which are mcreasingly effective in the maritime field and effective with the conveniences they offer, often make operations easier and sometimes difficult. Stress caused by learning and applying new technological devices, like technostress, affects seafarers negatively. The aim of this study is to determine the technostress levels of seafarers in Turkey and to determine the technostress levels of seafarers based on their marital status, the development they work in, their seafarers license, age, the maritime program they graduated from, the type of ship they work on, their duties on the ship, their professional experience and their dependents, and it is to reveal whefher there are differences in terms of the number of people variables. The population of the study carried out within the scope of the general screening model consists of active ship officers in the records of the General Directorate of Maritime Affairs of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure in Turkey. The data of the study was obtained through an online survey (Google Form) from 411 ship officers using the "Techno-Stress Scale". As a result of the study, it was determined that the general technostress levels of seafarers and technostress levels in the techno-workload and techno-uncertainty dimensions were "medium", and their technostress levels in the techno-complexity dimension were "low". In the study, it was determined that the general technostress levels and technostress levels in the techno-workload and techno-uncertainty dimensions of seafarers differed according to marital status, while the technostress levels in the techno-complexity dimension did not differ significantly in terms of marital status. The study also concluded that the technostress levels of seafarers did not differ significantly in terms of other variables. In the light of the findings, various suggestions were made to reduce technostress in seafarers.