Nomophobia: impact of cell phone use and time to rest among teacher students

Abstract

Nomophobia is one of the modern pathologies that has been born as a consequence of the impact that portable technologies have had on society and the dependence generated among citizens, especially towards smartphones. This phobia manifests itself and is intensified by the loss of immediate access to information, to the network of contacts, as well as by the impossibility of contacting or being contacted by other people. All this ends up interfering with the development of the person's daily life (physical, physiological, psychological, social problems, among others). Although the research is in an incipient phase, the problem has not been studied with the teaching population, so we present a pioneering study with this group, the main objective being to analyze the prevalence of nomophobia in future teachers of Early Childhood and Primary Education, as well as to check the incidence of rest time in the levels of nomophobia. The study follows a descriptive, correlational, transversal and predictive design and a quantitative methodology. The standardized nomophobia questionnaire NMP-Q was used on a sample of n ¼ 849 future teachers. The results show average levels of nomophobia in most of the variables. However, the higher levels of nervousness, fear or anxiety stand out due to the inability to communicate instantaneously. Also, a higher prevalence of the problem is observed in the sector of the sample that claims to sacrifice rest time due to the use of their mobile phone. Although these numbers are not alarming, we must take into account that in some variables the prevalence is slightly higher, making it necessary to make educational interventions in this regard and to promote education for the responsible and critical use of media and technologies.

The relationship between the nomophobic levels of higher education students in Ghana and academic achievement

“…Notably, the outcomes of the current study demonstrate that the principal anxiety of students is exhibited on the construct "Not being able to communicate" as the construct received the largest scores. This finding supports the study by Moreno-Guerrero et al [ 19 ], and other studies [ 15 , 17 , 69 – 73 ] carried out on similar population. In their studies, they found that "Not being able to communicate" garnered the highest scores among the four constructs.…”

“…The prevalence of nomophobia among distinct populations, notably adolescents [ 67 ], the youth [ 19 ] and higher education students [ 9 , 50 , 58 ], has been evidenced in several studies. Besides, studies have demonstrated that young adults (university students) routinely experience the highest nomophobia prevalence; and, the prevalence ranges between 77 percent and 99 percent among emerging and developed nations [ 44 , 68 ].…”

“…Additionally, a single-blind data collection was employed so that the students would not be in the know regarding the aims of the study. The investigators adopted this process in an attempt not to generate social desirability, reactivity and expectations [ 19 ] among the students. The e-Questionnaire was distributed by generating a short URL or link which was forwarded to the students via their institutional electronic mail (email) and Short Message Service (SMS).…”

Do Age and Educational Stage Influence No-Mobile-Phone Phobia?

“…Today, technology, specifically mobile devices, is fully immersed in our society. One example of this is the smartphone, which is used and used today by practically the entire population, from children to adults, to access mainly information [ 1 ] and to be able to communicate with others [ 2 ]. We are probably looking at a device whose characteristics—its portability, ubiquity and immediate access—allow society to access the Internet from anywhere and at any time [ 3 ], being with it 24 h a day, 7 days a week [ 4 ], thereby provoking new habits and actions on the part of people in their daily lives [ 5 ].…”

The Effectiveness of Nomophobia Therapy on Self-esteem and Nomophobia Symptoms in High School Students

“…An effective intervention should be developed for nomophobia and other communicational problems of students because of the psychological, emotional, and academic impairments of students with nomophobia symptoms and cellphone overuse (11,(23)(24)(25). If proper treatments are used, it will be possible to avoid such disorders and vulnerability of students to emotional, academic, social, and behavioral problems (26).…”