Perceived Digital Stress Among Middle School Students

Abstract

The current research aims to identify digital stress as a concept in addition to its components, theories, and behavioral, personal and social effects. The research also aimed to determine the level of digital stress among middle school students, and to determine the nature of the differences between the mean scores of students on the digital stress scale according to the gender variable. The research sample is limited to male and female middle school students in the center of Babil Governorate, who are (30) male and female students, who were drawn in a simple random manner, during the second semester of the academic year (2022-2023), The researcher relied on the analytical descriptive approach, where the researcher built the scale after ascertaining its validity and reliability by presenting it to a group of arbitrators, in addition to reviewing the theoretical literature and previous studies on how to design the scale in this field, and she adopted it in collecting data and information to answer the research objectives. The results concluded that the level of digital stress among middle school students is high, as the arithmetic mean of the scale phrases was (70.5333) with a standard deviation of (16.92013), which is higher than the hypothetical mean. And it found that there were no statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the students according to the gender variable. The researcher suggested conducting studies to determine the effects of digital stress and designing training programs to educate students about the dangers of digital technology and how to deal with digital stress. She also suggested the need to educate students about the dangers resulting from excessive use of the Internet and electronic applications. And the need to regulate the use of the Internet by setting specific times for the use of mobile phones among adolescents