- Mexico ranks ninth in the world in terms of people connected to the Internet.
- Technostress also has divisions such as techno-fatigue, technophobia, techno-addiction and, more recently, techno-dependency.
- Other technopathologies that have appeared in recent years are Phantom Vibration Syndrome and Sleep texting.
The ultimate goal of technology is to make life’s tasks easier. Many times it succeeds but in other cases its impact is counterproductive because it generates new damage. Such is the case of techno-stress, a new modality that has seen an exponential increase from the home office that employees have adopted.
In this sense, it has been observed that an alteration related to the abusive handling of information and communication technologies (ICT) could cause anxiety and cognitive disorders. In addition, sleep problems, difficulty concentrating, memory disturbances, insecurity, respiratory, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal symptoms, among other affectations.
The professor of the Faculty of Psychology (FP), of the UNAM, Erika Villavicencio Ayub, explained the above and also said that technology is a powerful tool that we must prepare to use it in the best way. The central idea is that it should contribute to raise levels of success and prevent the development of health disorders.
What is technostress?
It is described as the negative psychological state derived from the introduction and use of technologies. In 2022, Mexico ranked ninth in the top ten countries with the highest number of Internet users with 98 million connected users. The other nine nations were China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Nigeria and Germany. Likewise, it occupied one of the first sites in Latin America with the greatest connection to the network of networks.
He recalled that the pandemic caused the reconfiguration of the use of ICTs and in recent years the percentage of the population over six years of age and adults who use the Internet increased by 78 percent, mainly Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as information search, bank movements , download some software or interact with any service of government institutions.
In the fourth cycle of conferences UNA View from Psychology, Villavicencio Ayub explained that by age group, in 2020 and 2021 – the period in which the confinement was registered and, consequently, we migrated our school and work activities to homes with the help of ICTs – the individuals who spent the most time connected was 18 to 24 years old; later, the one from 25 to 34 years.
“The average hours that Mexicans use the internet is around 4.8 hours a day. The people who use it the most are between the ages of 12 and 34, consuming between 5.5 and 6.3 hours a day. While those who use it the least are the age groups between six and 11 years; and those over 55”.
The home office and techno-stress
He home office or teleworking, school classes at home, the use of entertainment or streaming platforms, and internet purchases, shot up the use of the network to 6.4 hours per day and maintains a direct relationship with the development of the technostress.
“The tools or devices with which most of the population can connect to the web are, first of all, the mobile phone, in 98.8 percent, followed by the laptop and the tablet.”
He stated that there are various types of techno-stress: techfatiguewhich is observed more in generation X (those born between 1965 and 1980) who migrated to the use of the Internet and technological devices, and who experience fatigue from workloads and being exposed to digital exchange.
Likewise, the technophobia, which is the resistance or fear of using technology due to the little preparation that exists for it. The technoaddiction and, more recently, the technodependency. In addition to these four categories, there is a series of disorders that are documented and investigated, such as fomo (Fear of Missing Out, fear of losing something). It is the obsession with being permanently connected to find out what is happening on the timeline of friends or people who follow each other on the networks.
In the same way, social isolation, which implies the voluntary removal of others. He too phantom vibration syndrome, when it is believed that my cell phone vibrated or rang and we immediately searched for the device and answered it, but we did not realize that it is not true. The percentage of people who believe they feel it is rising more and more, particularly at night.
Another syndrome is sleep texting, where people in advanced sleep use their devices unconsciously or almost asleep, and the mute generation, which occurs mainly in millennials and centennials. It has to do with those changes in the way they communicate or speak, although they prefer to text instead of making a call or interacting in person.
He pointed out that addiction to WhatsApp, one of the most widely used applications or social networks, is another of the syndromes, along with infotoxication, an excess of information greater than what our brain can assimilate. And phubbing, which consists of ignoring our companions or whoever we have next to by concentrating on technology (mobile phone).
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