1

Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students

Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students

Hendrawan, Kenley
University of California, Davis
 2
Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students

Cover Letter:
This paper has given me much more experience into the professional writing world.
Through research and data gathering I see that this paper differs from the literacy narrative as
this is more logic and fact based whereas the literacy narrative is more based on personal
thoughts/opinions. The research paper is presented way such that the audience can understand
the point of my research. The organization was arranged to show the different sections of this
paper which enables it to be more organized and easily understood. As I wrote this paper, I felt
the audience wanted to understand the struggles of a college student in the modern world. I
chose to do so in a factual way so that they can see the results changing technology has to
students.
Although there is lots of data and sources to support this topic, I feel that one point I
could have changed differently was the overall subject. The topic is new and not many have
researched and although there are papers from past times noting stress caused by technology,
they all conclude that technology causes stress and nothing more. There aren’t any papers
regarding student stress and technology, so it made it difficult to gather sources that explain my
topic in depth. However from this I gained insight on how researchers in new fields write their
papers. Through combining different sources and gathering data from students/professors, I
was able to connect the dots and shed light on a connection between stress among students
and advancing technology. With this new skill of combining different conclusions to support a
new topic, I can apply this to other questions that don’t have clear answers as I can use the data
around me that partially answers the question and piece them together to get an answer that
can fully answers the question.
After peer reviewing, I feel more confident in my research paper and the information I
have written in it. I am still certain that improvements to the methods section, particularly in
the tests conducted, could be improved. Questions can always be worded better to suit my
topic as I chose to ask questions that relate to my topic but not answer it directly. I was lucky
for my peer reviewers to be more critical of my writing as they found more errors mostly in
sections with little analysis and repetition. Apart from those improvements mentioned, my
main question is how well I answered my prompt. Throughout writing this paper I felt as if I did
not answer my topic as well.
 3
Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students

Abstract:
In today’s world of rapid communication and advancement, there exists a correlation
between the rate at which technology is advancing and the increase of student stress. This has
been an emerging problem among students as there is an increase of pressure due to the high
demand of well-rounded and technologically advanced individuals in the field. At the rate which
technology is advancing, once a tool used to ease stress on students is becoming one of their
stressors. To determine whether this hypothesis is true, 15 students were tested and one
professor was interviewed and based on the results, it has been proven that most people
believe technology is advancing at an alarming pace that contributes to increased stress on
students. From this research, we can assess the material taught to students and can potentially
modify the content such that it enables students to learn efficiently with less stress.

Introduction:
The advancement of technology in today’s rapidly shifting world impacts everyone
greatly as information travels faster and innovations are more rapid than ever before. However,
for some this quick change presents additional pressure. Based off the American Institute of
Stress in 2008 a survey was conducted with results saying eight out of ten college students are
faced with stress in their daily lives [1]. Students are expected to learn so much material at a
fast pace to keep up with industries that advance their own respected fields. For example, in
the STEM field, students spend most of their time studying for classes learning concepts on
higher level physics, biology, chemistry, and calculus in addition to being involved in
extracurriculars and maybe even research. When interviewed, most students say that the
reason they are so active and do so much work is simple: they want to get a job. The job
market, regardless of position evolves rapidly to meet the needs of an ever-changing world. An
article from Eric Leuthardt, M.D from Psychology Today says that the, “advent of the internet
and wireless communication the time of lag transmission is near zero” [2]. As information is
quickly and easily accessible, students are forced to adapt and learn at a quicker rate to
compete in the job market. This shift in expectations and rates of learning causes students to
have an increased level of stress and pressure.

Methods:
Two methods were used to determine whether the correlation between advancement
in technology and increase in stress is true. The first method was to have an online survey of 15
students who are currently enrolled in a college/university, mostly from different campuses in
the UC system that are between the ages of 18-22, and the second method was to interview an
engineering and psychology professor on their comments on student stress levels. The data for
each method is shown below:
 4
Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students

Method 1: Online Surveys

Using Google Forms, 15 people were surveyed with the following questions:
1. What college/university do you attend, what major are you currently in?
2. Does your major use technology and how?
3. Is there a sense of competition in your major?
4. Do you see individuals in your major get burnt out due to increased competition?
5. Do you think technology in your field advances too quickly?
6. Do you think technology causes stress among college students?
7. Is it possible to destress using technology and how?
8. Is there an increased pressure on college students to learn more than expected?
9. Do you think that the fast-paced world we live in causes students to learn more rapidly
than ever before and how?
10. In your opinion, do you think there is a relationship between stress and technology?
When analyzing the responses, the results agreed with the theory that technology can
cause stress. On question number 6, one respondent states that technology can, “distract
college students from their studies or overwhelm them due to over-sensitization of information
and exposure.” “Technostress under different organizational environments: An empirical
investigation” states that this type, “term “technostress” first appeared in Craig Brod (1984),
where technostress was defined as “a modern disease of adaptation caused by an inability to
cope with the new computer technologies in a healthy manner” [3]. This article says that ICTs
(information and communication technologies) are found to impact one’s psychological health.
This is then elaborated on by another article on the stress, depression and lack of sleep in
relation to ICT usage. In this paper, the researchers did a survey where college students were
asked different questions regarding ICTs and found that, “For women, high combined use of
computer and mobile phone at baseline was associated with increased risk of reporting
prolonged stress and symptoms of depression at follow-up, and number of short message
service (SMS) messages per day was associated with prolonged stress” [4]. The results of these
two research papers both are similar: stress relating technology has become a prominent issue
in our daily lives. These results line up with the results from the first method, as most
respondents replied that technology increases competition and the rate of learning at which
students have a hard time catching up to.
Method 2: Interview
Along with surveying 15 individuals, an interview with Professor Subash Risbud, a
Materials Science and Engineering professor at UC Davis was conducted to collect his opinions
on the topic of stress and advancing technology. He was chosen as his course, Material
Properties, includes many topics used in industry. Professor Risbud’s responses show how
faculty members deal with student stress.
6 Questions were asked:
 5
Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students

1. Have you noticed an increase in stress amongst your students in the past year?
2. In your opinion, is engineering becoming a highly competitive field?
3. Is there a relation between advancing technology and increased student stress?
4. Do you think technology is advancing too quickly for students to catch up to?
5. Is the advancement of technology causing students to be more burnt out in your
opinion?
6. How do professors combat the increased student stress based on their field, for
example in engineering most test scores are relatively low due to the difficult material
covered?

Upon asking him whether students are exposed to too much information, he states that,
“technology itself is advancing at a rate which students can’t seem to catch up with. Everyday
there’s new inventions and new products that are constantly getting better, take your iPhone
for example, every year Apple releases a new phone.” After talking about the advancement of
technology, the subject turned to student stress. Regarding stress due to competition, he
replied, “It’s definitely prominent in the field of engineering as students are coming in top of
their class, the brightest of the bunch and they take classes here and they see that they aren’t
doing as good in college compared to high school. What I say to them: don’t try to learn
everything perfectly in your major. It is like water droplets in the ocean. You cannot collect all
the droplets however whatever you collect is still apart of the sea.”

Results:
 6
Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students
 7
Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students

Based on the methods stated above, the results pointed towards a similar idea:
advancing technology does contribute to some stress in students. This is mainly caused by the
increase in learning rates across universities and competition to keep up with modern times.
Students are held to higher standards than where they must learn more than expected than
years prior to merely keep up with the constant innovations. For example, the job market is
slowly advancing to the point where obtaining a bachelor’s degree by itself is not enough. ICTs
are causing individuals to act more quickly than ever before and with a society that shows
acceleration in innovation, as another research paper shows, “Stressful situations at work, or
elsewhere, cause psychophysiological arousal, resulting in increased metabolism and increased
heat generation with a need for peripheral vasodilation. In addition, both mental and hormonal
stress responses have been reported to be enhanced during work in patients suffering from
VDU [video display units]-associated skin symptoms and electric hypersensitivity” [5]. Although
this research was conducted in 1992, we still see based on the results above that the issue of
stress caused by technology is a prevalent issue.
Discussion:
From the results we can see there is in fact a correlation between the advancement of
technology and increased student stress. Students can access way more information due to the
internet and numerous websites that give information for free. Increasing content to learn
places unexpected pressure to students, as the expectation for them increases as they are
assumed to be able to “google everything.” Most responses state that they use technology for
CAD (computer aided design) software and lab analyses. The shift in an increase of
technological usage in schools does allow students to do things more quickly and efficiently
however the overload of programs and causes students to be burnt out. When asked if
technology advances too quickly, 53.3% of respondents say that it does however 46.7% says it
does not. This equal split between technological advancement and its rapid growth shows how
this subject of innovating too quickly is still a new concept. For the most part, innovations are
used to make life easier however the dependence, as stated by Professor Risbud cannot replace
 8
Technological Advancement and its Relation to Stress Amongst Students

old-fashioned physical communication. Because technology opens a world of possibilities,

trying to capture all the information becomes almost impossible which is causing stress
amongst students as they feel the need to be able to learn and retain all this information so
that they can keep up with the rapid pace of innovation.

Conclusion:
To conclude these observations in the relationship between advancing technology and
increased stress amongst students, it is important that these events are recorded on a specific
point of view. Limitations that this project included was mainly due to the new topic this paper
is based on. The importance of advancing technology cannot be summarized in one paper as we
innovate far too quickly. If we find a solution to learn efficiently and reduce stress, technology
may have advanced far enough such that we have newer problems. However, this research
does open up the point that there is in fact a correlation between rapid innovation and
increased student stress and future research can prove how to keep technology advancing at a
quick pace but reduce student stress or even enable students to learn quickly but effectively.
For the most part, technology is created to improve our daily lives and to increase productivity
in individuals. However, at some points we advance too quickly and ironically, from the usage
of tools that were meant to make our lives easier, we are now seen under pressure and trying
to keep up with our own innovations.

References:
1. “College Students.” The American Institute of Stress, 2 Aug. 2018, www.stress.org/college-
students/.
2. “Why Is the World Changing So Fast?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers,
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-blender/201403/why-is-the-world-changing-so-fast.
3. “Technostress under Different Organizational Environments: An Empirical
Investigation.” Computers in Human Behavior, Pergamon, 24 June 2008,
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563208001040.
4. “Explore Scientific, Technical, and Medical Research on ScienceDirect.” ScienceDirect.com |
Science, Health and Medical Journals, Full Text Articles and Books., www.sciencedirect.com/.
5. Saxena. “Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The
Netherlands.” Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, 1 Jan. 1990,
europepmc.org/abstract/med/1702484.