Technostress: Consequences of abuse of new technologies

Always connected, always available, always in multitasking mode. These settings can make you feel depressed and stressed. Technostress: Consequences of abuse of new technologies.

What is technostress?

• The causes of this condition
• Addiction and technostress
• Why are new technologies so attractive?
• Healing technostress

New technologies are leading to change at every level of society. This includes not only social change, but also cultural and economic change. There is no doubt that they provide many benefits in terms of relationships and dissemination of information. They also make your life easier.

Poor management of the use of technology and loss of time spent on its use can cause many problems. Some of them are nomophobia, FOMO syndrome and technostress. In this article we will talk about technostress.

What is technostress?

In 1997, Larry Rosen and Michele Well popularized the term in their book Technostress: Dealing with Technology @Work @Home @Play. In this book, the authors explain that manufacturability is one of the negative consequences of technology. It can have this effect directly or indirectly in attitudes, thoughts, physiology or behavior man.

As you can see, technostress is a negative psychological state associated with the use of technology. In fact, according to psychologist, this is due to the perception of a lack of balance between the requirements and resources for the use of technology. In turn, this leads to feelings of discomfort, as well as a negative attitude and a high level of psychophysiological activation.

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Thus, technotress is a product of poor technology management, along with other factors such as low self-control and low tolerance to disorders.

The causes of this condition

In general, the causes of technotress are related to the age and generation to which the person in question belongs. Some of them:

• Excess information and demand for knowledge.
• The need to always be in touch.
• The need to always be available.
• Refusal to use technology when you feel that you do not have the skills to use it.
• Dependence on new technologies, which means a lack of ability to disconnect yourself and effectively manage time of use.

Addiction and technostress

As noted that new technologies offer young people (as well as not so young people) immediate sensory stimulation.

However, being physiologically and sensory active for an extended period of time can have detrimental effects on physical and mental health. Not surprisingly, these effects can interfere with normal human functioning.

So how does this dependence develop?

First of all, technology can create tolerance. In other words, you will always need to connect longer and longer and keep in touch with new technologies.

Second, it is addictive. This way, you may want to be in constant contact with things that give you sensory stimulation.

Finally, it can cause real withdrawal symptoms. In fact, people who are addicted to technology may experience discomfort, anxiety, irritability, and other related symptoms.

Why are new technologies so attractive?

According to many, this attraction is based on the way these technologies stimulate us. Rapid gratification and overload with stimulation that constant change can activate the brain's reward centers.

Thus, this constant stimulation can, at least initially, provide you with pleasure and fully occupy your attention. That's why technology is so attractive to people in general. It also makes it difficult to cut them off from life.

Healing technostress

In particularly severe cases, it is best to seek the help of a psychotherapist. In particular, reaction-preventing influence - a behavioral strategy that is usually useful for treating addictions - can be particularly beneficial. In addition, experts usually recommend the following for less severe cases:

• Give yourself time to engage in personal communication.
• Disconnect from new technologies and try sports or hobbies instead.
• Just learn to use new technologies that are useful to you.
• Set a schedule for interaction with technology.
• Use only technology to achieve specific goals. Never use it just because you are bored or do nothing more.

Obviously, in some ways, new technologies have been useful to people. Instead of condemning them, we can congratulate ourselves on our progress. It is also worth mentioning that they opened the world.

However, it is extremely important to behave rationally when using these technologies. Also, you should never put the use of technology above human interaction.