ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Perspectives in Workplace Safety and Employee Well-Being in the Age of Technology, Sustainability, and DigitalizationView all 4 articles
How Addiction Fuels Innovation: A Mixed-Methods Study on the Psychological Trade-offs of Digital Labor in Gig Economy
Provisionally accepted
- 1Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macao, SAR China
- 2Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China
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As digitalization reshapes the global labor market, digital laborers in the gig economy face distinct psychological pressures stemming from constant hyperconnectivity, algorithm-driven coordination, and inherently unstable employment relationships. Employing a mixed-methods approach that combines data from 20 semi-structured interviews and 1041 questionnaire responses, this study develops a research model to understand the mechanisms of digital crowdworkers' addiction and its impact on enhancing innovation implementation. The results indicate that the affordance of gamification on crowdsourcing platforms, the self-worth pursuit of crowdsourced digital laborers, and their skill enhancement exert a positive impact on crowdworkers' addiction and innovative behaviors. The findings suggest that digital crowdworkers' behavioral addiction may motivate their innovative behavior, demonstrating that irrational psychological mechanisms can be transformed into instrumental innovation. The study reveals the dual effects of the platform economy on addictive behaviors and offers a new framework for organizations to balance short-term innovation efficiency gains with long-term sustainable development.
Keywords: digital labor psychology1, crowdworkers2, innovation3, addiction4, gamificationaffordances5, mixed method6
Received: 10 Sep 2025; Accepted: 24 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 LIU, Liu and Ou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jiayu Ou, oujiayu268@foxmail.com
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