Turning Lemons into Lemonade: Social Support as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Technostress and Quality of Life Among University Students.

Purpose: The overuse of internet-based technologies as a means of coping with the stress they generate has resulted in an alarming level of addiction, adversely impacting the quality of life and overall health of younger individuals. This social detachment, in turn, contributes to both physical and mental health deterioration. The potential remedy for this predicament lies in the application of social support as an antidote to internet addiction. In this context, our present study employs the Stress-Strain-Outcome model to explore the indirect effects of internet addiction and the moderating role of social support in relation to the influence of technostress on the quality of life of adults. Methods: We adopted a time-lagged design to collect data from university graduates and evaluated our study hypotheses using Mplus. Results: Our empirical findings highlight the significant influence of technostress on internet addiction, with the latter significantly mediating the relationship between technostress and quality of life. Furthermore, our results reveal that social support effectively moderates the indirect effects of technostress on quality of life through its impact on internet addiction. Conclusion: These findings can help researchers and educators better understand the underlying mechanisms between technostress and quality of life with social support as the silver lining. This form of social support holds the potential not only to alleviate internet addiction but also to positively enhance the quality of life and overall wellbeing of individuals facing these challenges. The implications of these findings and avenues for future research are also discussed.

Economic and financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia.

The world is facing a COVID-19 pandemic outbreak with an unprecedented and enormous impact on the lives of humankind. The economic engine has suffered a big blow in economic and financial performance in all the regions. South Asian countries are also trying to cope with the challenges posed by the pandemic. This paper attempts to understand the severity of the pandemic, the responses by the governments of the region, and the way forward. The pandemic affected the services, manufacturing, trade, supply chain, and particularly the small businesses, which disrupted all the economic indicators, forecasts, and growth patterns. The paper also discusses the strategies devised by the countries to counter the shocks of pandemics and what new opportunities are identified under the circumstances.