COVID-19 has caused obstacles in continuing normal life almost everywhere in the world by causing the implementation of social distancing and eventually imposing the lockdown. This has become the reason for the increase in technology usage in daily life for professional work as well as for entertainment purposes. There has been an increased prevalence of technology usage in adolescents and children during lockdown leaving its impact on their lives either in a positive or negative aspect. The overall documented percentage increase of technology usage in children was about 15%, of which smartphone usage has 61.7% of prevalence. Disturbance in brain functioning is suggested to be originated by compromise of neuroplasticity of the nerves. The radiofrequency (RF) radiations emitting from the smartphone are of doubtful concern as a brain tumor risk factor in children. The increased usage can have effects on brain functioning that will compromise sleep and cognitive abilities and develop risk for certain mental illnesses including, but not limited to, depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s disease, and attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD). Despite being a threat for developing mental illness, video games are proven to reduce depression and anxiety, and increase creativity, skills, and cognition in children. The increased usage of technology can have a positive and negative impact on the mental development of adolescents and children depending on the trends in the usage. However, parents should be monitoring their children’s mental health and behavior in these difficult times of pandemic.

The use of digital technology as the only communication and relationship channel in work, school and social contexts is bringing out dynamics that are sometimes in contrast with each other. The purpose of this article is to investigate the impact of digital technology on teachers’ school practices in the context of COVID-19. This impact was studied in relation to the constructs of motivation, perceived stress, sense of self-efficacy and resistance to/acceptance of technologies. This study examined the role played by the massive and coercive use of digital technologies (and the relationship with innovation and change) in predicting motivation and perceived stress among teachers. To this end, the impact of digital technologies on motivation and perceived stress were explored in the sample. A questionnaire consisting of three scales was administered to 688 Italian school teachers of all educational levels (from childhood to upper-secondary school), who completed a socio-demographic section, a section on the scale of the impact of technology and distance learning, a perceived stress scale and items on motivation and professional development. Descriptive and inferential analyses were applied to the data. Key findings indicated that the impact of digital technologies during the pandemic negatively correlates with both perceived stress and motivation. Practical implications were suggested to help teachers develop functional coping styles to cope with technological changes in work and life contexts.

This study is aimed at evaluating the outcomes of mind–body transformation therapy (MBT-T), previously known as the creative psychosocial genomic healing experience© (CPGHE). The intervention was aimed at reducing the perceived level of stress in two non-clinical groups of students with different educational levels and different expertise in the domain of well-being. Whereas participants from the first group were first-year university students, participants from the second group were students attending a post-graduate program in psychotherapy. All participants (n = 159) were exposed to a single session of MBT-T, each group in a separate session. The results of two paired-samples t-tests, conducted separately on the two samples, showed that there was a statistically significant reduction in the participants’ perceived level of stress between pre- and post-intervention states in both samples (t88 = 5.39, p < 0.001; t53 = 4.56, p < 0.001 respectively). The results, therefore, showed that a single session of MBT-T was beneficial in reducing the perceived level of stress in both first-year university students and students attending a post-graduate program in psychotherapy, regardless of educational level and expertise in the domain of well-being.

Research on selfie-related behavior has recently flourished. The present study expands theoretical and empirical work on phenomenon by assessing the psychometric properties of the Selfitis Behavior Scale among an Italian sample and by examining its unexplored mediating role in the relationships between dark triad traits and social media addiction. A total of 490 participants (53.1% females) completed a self-report survey including socio-demographics, the Selfitis Behavior Scale (SBS), the Short Dark Triad Scale (SD3), and the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS). Results showed the SBS had a five-factor structure with good psychometrics properties in terms of reliability coefficients and measurement invariance across gender. In addition, findings from the path model supported the mediating role of selfitis behavior in the relationships of narcissism and psychopathy with social media addiction. Machiavellianism was found to be unrelated to selfitis behavior and social media addiction. The model shed light into the previous inconsistent findings on the associations between dark triad traits and social media addiction by taking into account the key role of selfitis behavior as an underlying mechanism. The findings may explain individual differences in personality traits associated with co-dependence (i.e., the combination of the dependence on self and others and social media addiction).

Mind-body therapies can be defined as interventions that are based on several practices designed to facilitate the mind's positive impact on the body (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2016). Ancient practices for self-care and well-being such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, and qigong, as well as more modern western practices such as hypnotherapy, progressive relaxation, autogenic training, mindfulness, biofeedback, guided imagery, relaxation training, and psychological therapies, all embrace this definition. The list is ever growing and includes new practices developed over the past few decades that integrate psychology, consciousness, and body movement, such as eye movement desensitization reprocessing (Fernandez & Faretta, 2007), mind-body transformation therapy (Rossi, Mortimer, & Rossi, 2013), and brain wave modulation (Cozzolino & Celia, 2016), which we used for the purposes of this study in a population of university students.