Technophobia

Technophobia is the fear of, dislike of or discomfort with advanced technology or complex devices, particularly personal computers, smartphones and tablets. Researchers describe it as an irrational fear or anxiety that arises when a new technology disrupts a person's familiar way of performing a task, and the term covers both active avoidance of devices and passive anxiety or apprehension about using them. Psychologist Larry Rosen distinguished uncomfortable users from cognitive and anxious computerphobes. A cross-national study of first-year college students in the early 1990s found that about 29 percent reported high-level technophobic fears, with rates as high as 58 percent in Japan and 53 percent in Mexico. The concern is not new: workers in Industrial Revolution England feared that new machinery would displace their skilled labor.