Tecnophobia (fear of technology): causes, symptoms and treatment

April 14, 2024

New technologies have burst in 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 quality of life, because they facilitate greater access to information and provide us with new professional and leisure opportunities.

No one can doubt the benefits of new technologies; However, not everything is rosy, and experts have been warning us of the risks of misuse for some time. Nomophobia, FOMO Syndrome or Technosthress are some examples.

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

What is technophobia?

Technophobia is a complex concept, and there are not many researches about it. On the one hand there seem to be different degrees, and according to one of the first researchers who studied the phenomenon for 30 years, Larry Rosen, a psychologist at the University of California, seems to have three categories of technophobic subjects:

Uncomfortable technophobes : they are those people who do not master the new technologies, they use them but they are not comfortable doing it.
Cognitive technophobes They use them but with fear, because they feel that they are not fully trained.
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 appeared for the first time in the American psychiatrist book Craig Brod called "Technostress: The Human Cost of the Computer Revolution", which was published in 1984. For the author, the 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: "Tecnosestress: the new psychopathology of the -era digital-"

Causes of this phenomenon

The causes of technophobia can be varied, as can its manifestations. In less serious cases the origin can be found in the perception that the individual has at the time of mastering the technological devices, a special one of insecurity that prevents it from adapting to technological change. We could imagine, for example, the manager of a business that is incapable of adapting to new technologies, because he thinks that he will not be able to use them, although it greatly benefits the good progress of his company. Or the subject who does not want to update his mobile phone because he does not know how to use smartphones.

In fact, studies suggest that, after 40 years, adults have greater difficulty to get used to computers and other technological gadgets, one of the causes, according to research, could be fear of the unknown. That is to say, and as Rosa Farah of the Center for Research in Psychology in Computer Sciences of the PUC-SP (Sao Paulo) affirms, "it is not the technological devices that cause fear, but to show their own inability to use the machine. "

But nevertheless, 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 refer to this irrational fear as cyberphobia. Phobic disorders can also be learned by observation, by a phenomenon known as "vicar conditioning".

Symptoms of fear of technology

As explained throughout the article, there are different manifestations of this phenomenon, so the intensity of the symptoms can vary from one individual to another. However, the symptoms of technophobia are presented in front of 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 in the handling of new technologies, encouraging him to take short courses and demonstrating that he can learn to manage the new technologies that are so useful today.

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

For the treatment of phobias, the most commonly used are relaxation techniques and exposure techniques. However, the one that is most used is one that uses both: it receives the name of systematic desensitization. With this type of treatment the patient learns different coping skills and is exposed to fear systematically and gradually, that is, confronts the feared stimulus while learning to control the physical and mental reactions that are characteristic of their phobia.

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

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 frequent anxiety disorders, and much of the population suffers from the presence of different stimuli: spiders, snakes, clowns, etc.