Workplace Loneliness Experience Among Older Professionals (Aged ≥50 Years) in the Context of Digitalization: Protocol for a Scoping Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Workplace loneliness-defined as the perceived absence of meaningful social relationships at work-can have a negative impact on the well-being, engagement, and productivity of employees. Older professionals (aged ≥50 years) may be particularly vulnerable to workplace loneliness in the context of accelerated digitalization, which may create obstacles to inclusion, communication, and collaboration. Despite growing interest in this phenomenon, no comprehensive synthesis has yet examined how digital tools and transformations affect loneliness among older workers or what interventions have been implemented to address it. OBJECTIVE: This scoping review aims to systematically map the existing literature on workplace loneliness among workers aged 50 years or older, with a particular focus on how digitalization influences these experiences. The review will also identify digital tools associated with loneliness and explore organizational interventions to reduce loneliness among this demographic. METHODS: This scoping review will follow the methodological framework by Arksey and O'Malley and the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) reporting guidelines. A comprehensive search will be conducted in multiple databases (MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, and APA PsycINFO) and gray literature. Eligible studies will (1) include workers aged 50 years or older, (2) address workplace loneliness or related constructs in professional contexts, and (3) be situated in digitalized work environments (eg, remote or hybrid work, digital tools, and information and communications technology systems). Study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment will be conducted independently by at least 2 reviewers. Data will be charted using a predefined template covering study characteristics, theoretical frameworks, the digital context, loneliness measures, and intervention strategies and synthesized narratively and thematically. RESULTS: As this is a scoping review protocol, results are not yet available. A preliminary search conducted in June to July 2025 across MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science yielded 450, 1, and 47 potentially relevant records, respectively. No systematic or scoping reviews were identified on workplace loneliness among older workers in digitalized contexts. One review addressed video calls for nonworking older adults, reporting very low-certainty evidence. The planned review will apply the PRISMA-ScR guidelines to synthesize evidence on digitalization's role in, technologies associated with, and organizational interventions to mitigate workplace loneliness for professionals aged 50 years or older. CONCLUSIONS: This scoping review will systematically examine how digitalization shapes workplace loneliness among professionals aged 50 years or older and identify organizational interventions that address it. The synthesis will refine conceptual understanding, highlight critical evidence gaps, and inform the development of socially supportive digital work environments for aging workforces. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Open Science Framework 6p4ak; https://osf.io/6p4ak. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/81843.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.072 | 0.067 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.016 | 0.019 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.017 | 0.012 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.010 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.067 | 0.013 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".