Technology benefits us in a lot of things but lots of people are unaware that we are very prone to its negative impacts. Yes, it makes our lives convenient but does it really make our life fully convenient? Have you ever surfed the Internet only to discover that you lost track of time? You get and learn so many things and information that you are interested from it so how can it be that bad?
The issue is when technology is so addictive a person is unable to do anything other than use technological equipment. Technology has expanded the distances in this modern age rather than cutting them off. Excessive usage of technology might cause people to suffer from detrimental effects on their health and may even cause death.
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If you are an observant person, then you’ll notice that people are slowly falling for technology addiction. According to American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), technology addiction is an impulse control disorder that involves the obsessive use of mobile devices, the Internet or video games, despite the negative consequences to the user. Most probably it occurs to teenagers up to adulthood and it no doubt makes them very lazy because they were always focused on spending more time on video games, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc.
Technology destroys not only our physical health but also our social and mental health. You may ask how does technology destroy your physical health? Well, the first thing that it’ll damage you is your vision. According to a 2008 survey by the American Optometric Association (AOA), about 40% of the patients that have gone to optometry said they experience eye strain due to computer vision syndrome, while 45% complained of neck and back pain affiliated with computer or easily carried gadget use. And according to Jim Sheedy, Ph.D., “handheld devices force users to position the equipment closer than eyes want, you have to exert more muscular effort to see at that distance and experience more symptoms than other technologies”.
Your hearing may also be destroyed because of technology. People tend to use earphones when watching a movie or listening to music so that they can hear it clearly. Turning your volume too high whenever you want to escape the world may be a factor of hearing loss. You may not know this but people can actually suffer from sore wrist and thumb because of texting too much. Not all the researchers believe in that but a survey was conducted by a British cellphone company and some people complained of pain from similar activity.
Immoderate use of technology may cause heart trouble. And it’s caused by sitting too much in front of your computer or laying down your bed while scrolling your Facebook timeline. The more time you sit in front of your computer the lesser is the blood circulates throughout your body. It is proven by a study back in 2015.
Let’s not forget about how excessive usage of technology causes sleep deprivation. Teens need to sleep at least 9 hours a day but modern technologies hinder teenagers from sleeping early. It is true that we lost track of time whenever we surf the Internet and the bad thing about this is that we tend to not feel hungry nor thirsty or have the urge to pee because we are too immersed with the technology that we are using. There are actually a lot of reports that people die from this habit because of neglecting basic needs. The real cause of sleep deprivation is the sleep chemical melatonin that is emitted by the glowing screen of your gadget. So, using technology is more likely to interfere with your sleep and effects your general state.
Now you know the threats of technology in our physical health let’s move on with mental health. Technologies such as gadgets emits radio waves in its screen. This radiation actually penetrates the human body causing an increase to someone’s risk of having a malignant or benign brain tumor.
Driving while talking on the phone, texting while listening on a meeting, surfing your tablet while watching TV; multitasking may seem very efficient but studies show it has the opposite effect. People who multitask had more difficulty filtering out irrelevant information than those who stick one task at a time. Multitaskers also took longer to switch tasks, distort problems and wasted time searching for new information when information they had was better and more reliable; this is an example of failing memory or memory loss.
In today’s generation, teenagers are making likes and shares a big deal. Some of them are even monitoring how many likes their profile pictures can get in Facebook. We all know that social media is a very wide platform for people to use to voice out their opinions or share their knowledge, but sometimes it gets out of hand. There are times that an individual discredit a person to bring down that person’s reputation because of jealousy. According to recent studies, social media platforms build more interaction with shy individuals who can’t form social relationships. Virtual relationship helps them to gain friends but on the other hand this may lead into dependency.
We all know that cyberbullying is prevalent in social medias and over half of teenagers are either participating or are actually victims of bullying. Once something is posted online especially a negative one, it’ll scar a person’s life forever. Negative posts never really go away and may sometimes resurface later which actually leads to the victim’s depression, anxiety and most probably attempted suicide.
Technology actually makes us dumber because it makes us depend on it too much. Gadgets eliminates the needs of us to train our mind, to memorize and to plan things ahead. It makes us blind to not see what is actually happening outside of it. We became a prison of technology unconsciously and now it’s hard to get out.
There is a new type of stress that is caused by computers called ‘chronic smartphone stress’. It is caused by notifications (or their absence), constant anticipation of a message or e-mail. If a person doesn’t get enough attention, this can make you feel stressed or even depressed.
As I’ve said earlier technology also destroys our social health. How come technology destroy even our social relationship with people? Well, first of all it separates you from interacting in the real world. It separates you from spending your time with your family. Phones and social medias prevent teens from experiencing solitude. According to Turkle, this results to teens suffering from “fear of missing out”. Basically, it disconnects us from the world around us leading to a threatening sense of isolation in today’s society.
Summarizing all of the above, it can be argued that technologies, despite the advantages they have 'given' us, have a significant negative impact on our physical, social and mental health. Risk awareness allows us to control our use of technology.
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