Imagine an average university student: they open their laptop to check an assignment, but first they have to deal with messages from the class group, three emails from the university platform, and a notification about a change in the due date. None of this requires great digital skills, but it does require attention that is fragmented at every step. At the end of the day, the feeling isn’t one of incompetence, but of being overwhelmed.
Behind this phenomenon is what’s known as technostress , which describes the discomfort that arises when technology exceeds our capacity to manage it . It’s related to the feeling that technology demands more than we can handle.
Five major stressors
What is causing this imbalance? It’s worth focusing on the major stressors. Techno-invasion occurs when academic matters encroach on personal spaces, and techno-overload occurs when digital demands arrive faster than can be processed.
Technocomplexity —when tools prove more confusing than expected—and technouncertainty , resulting from constant change, also play a role , compounded by technoinsecurity , the fear that technology will fail. Together, these factors explain a significant portion of technostress in universities.
Technostress and digital skills
Technostress does not depend on how well someone knows how to use technology. Some research questions this relationship.
In our recently published thesis, we found high levels of digital competence according to the European DigComp 2.2 framework , as well as high levels of self-efficacy, a variable traditionally seen as protective against stress . Even so, we observed that technostress remained at moderate levels, with no mitigating effect from the acquired skills.
This technostress can occur even in people with technical expertise. The problem lies not so much in “knowing how to use” technology, but in the emotional, cognitive, and organizational relationship we establish with it .
Knowing when to stop
In our digital fasting project , most students failed to complete the challenge, especially when trying to break deeply ingrained communication habits.
The automatic and ubiquitous use of technology (that is, undeliberate and sporadic) makes it uncomfortable to stop using mobile phones or computers, to be disconnected. In this sense, a digital detox acts as a mirror: it makes visible what goes unnoticed in our daily routine and shows the extent to which our relationship with technology depends not on skill, but on the difficulty of stopping, changing our pace, and regaining some control.
Everyone’s responsibility
Perhaps we are placing too much responsibility on the student and forgetting the role of the university. It’s not just an individual problem, but also a contextual one. Even the most skilled students suffer burnout when the digital ecosystem multiplies platforms, fragments attention, and demands constant availability .
The dispersion of resources and the need to consult several applications to avoid losing information increase the cognitive load , while the feeling of always being reachable fuels what is known as academic FOMO .
Constant multitasking makes it difficult to concentrate and accelerates mental fatigue : those who are more tech-savvy tend to take on more digital tasks and, paradoxically, are more exposed to burnout.
Added to this is an intensive use of tools that does not always translate into meaningful learning, which can increase the risk of technostress.
Learn to manage, not just to use
Another key aspect to understanding why even the most competent students struggle is the gap between official “digital competence” and their actual use of technology. Institutional frameworks typically measure technical skills: navigating, selecting information, etc. However, these categories fail to capture the emotional, temporal, and organizational complexity of everyday digital work.
As we noted in our study, digital competence is assessed as a set of skills, but not as the ability to sustain technological practices in demanding, saturated, and highly interdependent contexts.
This disconnect means that many students, despite feeling competent, find themselves overwhelmed by the simultaneous management of resources, academic pressure, constant decision-making, and the difficulty of maintaining a steady work pace. Technostress, therefore, stems from an incomplete understanding of the role of technology in academic life.
From the individual to the ecosystem
The results of the various studies discussed agree on one key point: the focus should not be solely on individual skills, but rather on how the university’s digital ecosystem is structured. Asking students to self-regulate is insufficient when platforms proliferate, messages overlap, and communication lacks clear boundaries .
Therefore, we propose shifting from a focus on technical skills to a perspective centered on digital well-being . This involves questioning institutional practices and reviewing communication protocols, for example.
The answer, therefore, must combine institutional changes and personal practices. Universities can design simpler, more coordinated digital environments that respect human interaction.
It’s not about using less technology, but about using it without letting it overwhelm us. When the environment is supportive and our habits are healthy, technostress loses ground.
Author Bio: José Luis Serrano is Professor of Educational Technology and Juan Antonio Gutiérrez Gómez is a Doctor of Educational Technology both at the University of Murcia
