Interplay of academic stress, digital fatigue, and loneliness in predicting university students’ mental health in the post-COVID era
Amjad Islam Amjad, Saira, Saba Firdos, Priyadarshini Muthukrishnan, Mohamad Ahmad Saleem Khasawneh, Thabet Bin Saeed Al-Kahlan · 2026
Read Interplay of academic stress, digital fatigue, and loneliness in predicting university students’ mental health in the post-COVID era by Amjad Islam Amjad, Saira, Saba Firdos, Priyadarshini Muthukrishnan, Mohamad Ahmad Saleem Khasawneh, Thabet Bin Saeed Al-Kahlan (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13538301.txt.
Description
Amjad Islam Amjad and colleagues model student mental health after the pandemic in a 2026 cross-sectional survey of 388 university students. Academic stress tied to heavy technology use may harm mental health through digital fatigue, with loneliness shaping the strength of that path. Students completed an online wellbeing scale built for the post-pandemic setting. Models tested direct links, a middle step through fatigue, and a loneliness interaction.
Academic stress linked strongly to mental health problems on its own. Digital fatigue carried part of that link, supporting a partial middle-step role. Loneliness also interacted with stress, strengthening the harmful pattern when loneliness ran high. The authors suggest smarter use of digital tools and more chances for students to socialize as practical responses for universities.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Amjad Islam Amjad, Saira, Saba Firdos, Priyadarshini Muthukrishnan, Mohamad Ahmad Saleem Khasawneh, Thabet Bin Saeed Al-Kahlan |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 49531 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |