We all think gadgets are the greatest things in the world, but are they doing more harm than good? That iPad you got last year doesn’t leave your hands when you’re sitting in the house. Your phone is the first thing you pick up when you wake up in the morning. Your laptop is probably the last thing you look at before you go to sleep every night of the week.
You’re not the only person who lives like this because it’s becoming really apparent we are all completely addicted to gadgets. I’m going to upset you because I want to explain how they could be hurting your health. You don’t need to throw them in the trash can yet, but I’d recommend you think about spending less time on them every day before you forget what the real world looks like.
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1. You’ll get insomnia
No matter how hard we try, we can’t get to sleep once we get into the bad habit of looking at bright screens before bedtime. Often we sit up all night staring at a bright screen until it’s minutes before bedtime. Then we just lie there for hours staring at the ceiling because our gadgets have prevented us from creating the sleep hormone we need to drift off. Insomnia is becoming serious and it’s affecting lots of lives. While we might turn to sleeping pills to help resolve our bouts of insomnia, it will keep on coming back so long as we are addicted to looking at screens. So switch off at least an hour before bedtime before it happens to you. To help you with drifting off, you might want to go the more natural route rather than jumping straight to pills. With turning off your laptop and phone when the night draws in, you may also want to take a look at websites such as https://perfectplantmarket.com/collections/delta-9-thc-drinks for that little bit of extra relaxation help.
2. Computer vision syndrome
I want you to imagine you’re back in the olden days and you’re hunting a wild animal. If you don’t catch anything you will starve to death. At what point in your adventure do you stare at the same point for hours and hours until your eyes feel strained? It definitely wouldn’t happen because human eyes definitely weren’t designed to stare into a screen for hours without looking up. Looking at your gadget screens for long hours would certainly create a lot of problems for your eyes. Therefore, do take a moment to adjust your screen settings to the level that comfy your eyes.
3. Getting a little fat
Do you think we’re all fat these days because we stuff our faces with fast food and fizzy pop? You would be forgiven for thinking this, but it’s not necessarily true. The reason most of us are overweight is because we simply don’t move around enough. We don’t move around enough because we’d rather spend most of our time sitting in front of a fancy gadget.
[Read also: How to Take Care of Your Health when Working at a Computer]
4. Repetitive stress injuries
When you bang on the keyboard for hours on end it can do strange things to the tendons inside your hand. Even playing around with your mouse can cause you damage because you literally do it all day. These repetitive stress injuries are common, so you should learn to unplug every once in a while. Don’t wait until you can’t feel your hand before you do something about it because it’s not worth it.
5. Can you hear what I’m saying?
Would you sit underneath an airplane when the engines were running for entertainment? You wouldn’t because it’s not entertaining, but also because it would hurt your ears. That doesn’t stop you from sticking a gadget in your ears and pumping up your music until it’s loud enough to make you deaf. Your hearing is probably already slightly damaged after years of abuse.
[Read also: Dangers of Excessive Use of Cell Phones]
Great article! I can testify for a wrist injury because of been in my computer long period of times. I actually had to buy a wrist pad and had minor surgery. Thanks for the tips.
Yeah I had problems with my wrist too a few years back due to spending too much time on my computer. I can still remember the pain, tingling and numbness that I suffered that time. Luckily I don’t need any surgery as mine was not so serious and it went away after I reduced my computer usage and incorporate some exercise routine in my daily life. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Nancy!
Hi Peter.
You have given the perfect information. With the increasing use of gadgets like smartphones, tablets and laptops we are inviting many diseases and getting away from our social relationships and responsibilities. I have seen many people who are spending lot of time with their gadgets, and becoming more lazy and in living in some stress which indirectly leads to many pshycological diseases. To be conclude we should avoid using these gadgets when we are away from our work and spend more time in other activites that can keep us in good health. I really appreciate your research work and efforts in creating this informative article.
Cases of Repetitive Strain Injury(RSI) are on the rise as these gadgets are getting popular. A negative effect of technology advancement I guess. Thanks for the comment, Todd!
In addition to those listed above a secondary effect of using different gadgets can be and higher online activity which may affect our social relationships in offline environment.
Yeah that’s one common social health problem right now. People just like “typing” on their gadgets rather than “chatting” face to face these days.
🙂
The points that you mentioned is for sure true. Especially the changes that are harmful are to the body. Hearing and sight impairment are one of the main damages that technology is doing to us. Nevertheless, we need to adapt technology and move on. Maybe that’s part of human evolution ! 😉
Nice article!
Yes all the modern gadget are affecting our health and life very negatively. Due long use computers many people get fatty and several disease caught. There should be a balance between there usage and our life
Yeah, there’s a need to get the balance between using these gadgets and not using them to avoid them from affecting our health. Well said, Rahul!
Most of the people are also not aware of the correct posture when using these gadgets especially the computer. Bad posture causes imbalance and stresses our bones and muscles. It can cause pain and even more serious problems. We should be aware of “ergonomics” to avoid some of the health problems brought by gadgets.
Hello peter,
Thanks for taking care of us. You are extremely right, almost every person of a family is liked with screen whether it is of Laptop or PC, TV, Mobile. We should take care lot of this natural human instrument. So once again, thanks a ton for these tips.
Thanks
Shivani Sharma