Psychodiagnostics of Technophobia and Technophilia: Development and Testing a Questionnaire of Attitudes towards Technology for Adolescents and Parents

Abstract

Background. The technological progress of the last two centuries of human history makes it relevant to study human attitudes to digital technologies, in particular the study of such socio-psychological phenomena as technophobia and technophilia, not only for marketing purposes, but also to understand the socio-psychological mechanisms of social change. Objective. To develop and validate the Technology Attitude Scale that takes into account cognitive and emotional aspects in adolescents and parents of adolescents 14—17 years old. Study design. The study was carried out in a correlation design and included full-time filling of the methods by all respondents. Participants. 448 parents of adolescents 14—17 years old and 360 adolescents 14—17 years old from six cities of the Russian Federation. Methods. Participants filled out Technology Attitude Scale and appraised their user activity, Internet addiction tendencies, parental mediation strategies, and the frequency of using gadgets during performing various daily activities. For data processing, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, Cronbach coefficient alpha in the IBM SPSS Statistics v. 22.0, the EQS software package and statistical packages as part of the R programming language. Results. The structure of the scale was refined based on the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and included four subscales: technophilia, technophobia, technorationalism, and technopessimism (Cronbach’s alpha 0.66—0.88). Technophilia and technorationalism dominate in the profile of attitudes towards technology. For parents, the emotional aspects of attitudes towards technology are associated with user activity and use of gadgets in everyday activities. In adolescents, technophilia is associated only with the use of gadgets in everyday activities. In adolescents, the experience of parental restrictions and technical control of their online activity is associated with a negative attitude towards technologies and the difficulties of a rational attitude towards them, while active parental mediation is associated with a higher level of technorationalism. Conclusion. The Technology Attitude Scale is a reliable scale that can be used in psychological research.