Technostress and Nomophobia Among Digital Natives: An Analysis in the Context of Students of Higher Education in India

Abstract

Digital education has gained its popularity after the Covid 19 pandemic and is gradually becoming an inevitable means of education at all levels especially in the higher education. The extensive and unavoidable digitalisation of education and a deeper penetration of social media in the life of learners resulted in some undesirable but inevitable effect such as technostress and nomophobia among learners. Even though the students in higher education depend on their smartphones for their academics, they lack the much desirable digital literacy and it leads to technostress while compelled to use latest technology. At the same time, the over-dependence on social media for communication and interactions, which is not technology-intensive, leads to addiction to smartphone called nomophobia. Studies revealed that both are hindrances to learning and affect the psychological well-being and academic performance of students. The paper explores this new concern and tries to identify the possible solutions so that it will not hinder the learning but lead to responsible use of digital gadgets for learning as well as social interactions especially among children in the higher education institutions, where digital learning is inevitable.