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.