Technophobia: causes, symptoms and treatment

New technologies have burst into our lives, computers, tablets or smartphones allow us to be connected to the digital world 24 hours a day. This has caused our way of relating to others and the environment and, in many cases, this has positively influenced our our quality of life, because they facilitate greater access to information and provide us with new professional opportunities and leisure.

No one can doubt the benefits of new technologies; However, not everything is rosy, and experts have been warning us about the risks of its misuse for some time. The nomophobia, he FOMO syndrome or the technostress are some examples.

Today we will talk about another disorder associated with technological advances, it is technophobia, whiche is characterized by either an aversion or an irrational fear of new technologies and the digital world.

What is technophobia

Technophobia is a complex concept, and there is not much research on it. On the one hand there seem to be different degrees, and according to one of the first researchers who studied the phenomenon during 30-year-old Larry Rosen, a psychologist at the University of California, there seems to be three categories of subjects technophobes:

• awkward technophobes: are those people who do not master new technologies, they use them but are not comfortable doing so.
• Cognitive technophobes: they use them but with fear, because they feel that they are not fully qualified.
• eager technophobes: it is considered pathological and the person experiences an irrational fear towards the use of new technologies.

Therefore, the symptoms of technophobia range from feeling uncomfortable and insecure to the pathological extreme, that of feeling great anxiety when the person is in contact with new technologies.

This term first appeared in the American psychiatrist Craig Brod book called “Technostress: The Human Cost of the Computer Revolution”, which was published in 1984. For the author, techno-stress is "an adaptation disease that has its origin in the high ability to deal with new computer technologies in a healthy way".

• Related article: “Technostress: the new psychopathology of the -digital age-”

Causes of this phenomenon

The causes of technophobia can be varied, just like its manifestations. In less serious cases, the origin can be found in the perception that the individual has when it comes to dominate technological devices, a special insecurity that prevents you from adapting to change technological. We could imagine, for example, the manager of a business who is unable to adapt to new technologies, because he thinks that he won't be able to use them, even if he remarkably benefits the smooth running of his company. Or the guy who doesn't want to update his mobile phone because he doesn't know how to use smartphones.

In fact, studies suggest that adults over the age of 40 have a harder time getting used to using computers and other technological gadgets, one of the causes, according to research, could be the fear of what a stranger. In other words, and as stated by Rosa Farah, from the PUC-SP Research Center for Psychology in Computer Science (Sao Paulo), "it is not the technological devices that cause fear, but to show his own inability to use the machine".

However, technophobia in extreme cases can be a phobic disorder and, therefore, can originate as a consequence of a traumatic event of the past, due to the process of classical conditioning. Some experts also call this irrational fear as cyberphobia. Phobic disorders can also be learned by observation, by a phenomenon known as "vicarious conditioning”.

Symptoms of fear of technology

As explained throughout the article, there are different manifestations of this phenomenon, so the intensity of the symptoms may vary from one individual to another. However**, the symptoms of technophobia occur when faced with the use of technological devices or everything that has to do with new technologies**, and the most characteristic are:

• Feelings of fear and, in extreme cases, panic.
• Anxiety and anguish.
• palpitations.
• Restlessness.
• sweating.
• Difficulty breathing and suffocation.
• Tremors.
• Lack of concentration.
• Avoidance of the feared stimulus.

Treatment of this phobia

Since the severity of the phenomenon can vary, this fear can often be overcome by training the individual to handle the new technologies, encouraging him to take short courses and showing him that he can learn to handle new technologies, which are so useful today in day.

However, in severe cases, psychological help may be necessary. Psychotherapy is very effective as shown by many investigations, and cognitive behavioral therapy is generally used, which uses different techniques.

For the treatment of phobias, the most used are relaxation techniques and exposure techniques. However, the most widely used is one that uses both: it is called systematic desensitization. With this type of treatment, the patient learns different coping skills and exposes himself to fear in a systematic and gradual, that is, he confronts the feared stimulus while learning to control the physical and mental reactions that are characteristic of his phobia.

But this form of treatment is not the only one that has proven to be effective for this type of disorder, rather the Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy are also helpful.

Both belong to a group of behavioral psychotherapies called third generation.

• In our article “What are third generation therapies?” we explain them to you.

types of phobias

Phobias are relatively common anxiety disorders, and a large part of the population suffers from them in the presence of different stimuli: spiders, snakes, clowns, etc.

• If you want to know the different types of phobias that exist, you can visit our article “Types of Phobias: Exploring Fear Disorders”