Is Technology Making You Ill?

We now spend an average of eight hours and 41 minutes using technological devices every single day. That's twenty minutes more than the average person sleeps at night.

81% of people have their smartphones on constantly, even in bed, and four in ten people admit that they would use their phone in the middle of the night if it woke them up.

We're surrounded by more technology than ever before. We start using it earlier in the day, with 51% of us spending more time on the internet in the morning than we do eating breakfast or preparing for the day. We also use them later in the day, with 80% of insomniacs using electronic devices in bed.

But how is all this technology affecting our health?

Here we explore the mental and physical health effects of technology.

Physical Health Concerns

Text Neck

Text Neck is a spinal problem caused by bending the neck towards phones, laptops, handheld game consoles and other wireless devices for prolonged periods of time. It's most common in teenagers and children.

It causes upper back and neck pain, (which may range from nagging twinges to sharp and debilitating spasms), shoulder pain, and pain in the arm or hand if the cervical nerve (nerves in the neck) become pinched.

With Text Neck, prevention is better than a cure:

• Take regular breaks (every 20-30 minutes) from your laptop, phone and other devices. When you have a break, put your device down and walk around.
• When using devices, raise them so you don't have to bend your neck to an extreme degree.

Blackberry Thumb

Blackberry Thumb is a catch-all name for repetitive strain injuries caused by typing messages out with the thumb. Some people can type up to forty words a minute, which the thumb is not suited for. This leads to three potential types of injuries:

• Aggravated arthritis: Many Blackberry users are of an age-range where they may be beginning to develop arthritis. This repeated wear-and-tear aggravates any developing degeneration.
• Trigger thumb: A type of tendonitis where there is inflammation of the flexor tendon (which helps the thumb to bend). This makes the thumb catch or click when you try to move it.
• de Quervain's tenosynovitis: A type of tendonitis causing inflammation of the where the wrist joins the forearm.

While, with true tendonitis a cortisone injection may be a helpful (if unpleasant) short-term solution, the only long-term answer is to rest that thumb.

READ Could a Digital Detox Save Your Sanity?

Insomnia

The blue lights our phones emit interfere with Melanin, making our bodies think we have to stay awake. Insomnia weakens our immune systems, leaving us prone to illness. Insomniacs are also more likely to develop cancer and experience infertility.

Sleep coach, Dr. Nerina Ramlakhan advises all patients to institute a device curfew, turning off all technology (including those phones, sorry!) ninety minutes before we go to bed. She also advises kicking all technology out of the bedroom, saying:

"Banishing technology from the bedroom is one of the easiest things people can do to promote a relaxing sleep environment and ensure they're getting enough rest for the body to recover overnight."

Computer Vision Syndrome

Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) is caused by looking at screens for several consecutive hours. It leads to headaches, and eyes that are either dry or watery. Research by the American Optometric Association shows that more than 70% of people who work using a computer suffer with CVS (that's more than 140 million people!).

Gradual watering or dry eyes is not usually a cause for concern. That said, you may benefit from seeing your optician or eye-doctor and having your sight checked to make sure you are wearing the optimal prescription (if you wear glasses) or to ensure you do not need glasses (if you currently do not). Additionally, there are some tips to reduce the strain on your eyes (courtesy of the American Optometric Association, see links):

• Make sure that your computer is at a comfortable height. Most people find positioning the computer 20 degrees below eye level and 20 to 28 inches away from their face is best)
• Every 20 minutes, look into the distance for 20 seconds to refocus your eyes. Every 2 hours, take a rest of 15 minutes.
• Blink frequently to prevent dry eyes.
• Consider a glare-filter to protect your eyes from the glare of the screens

READ Blinded by Smartphone: How Using Your Phone the Wrong Way Can Temporarily Cost Your Sight

Cybersickness

Do you ever feel dizzy and nauseous while scrolling down your phone? You may have a case of Digital Motion Sickness, or cybersickness.

Cybersickness is a bit like travel-sickness. In travel-sickness, you feel movement, but you don't see it. That's why you feel better looking out of the window on a car journey. In cybersickness, you see movement, but you don't feel it.

Medical director of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Balance and Vestibular Center, Steven Rauch, says:

“Your sense of balance is different than other senses in that it has lots of inputs...When those inputs don’t agree, that’s when you feel dizziness and nausea.” 

Problems don't necessarily stop when you return to the real world, either. Staring at scrolling images and returning to reality can make you more likely to fall and hurt yourself. It could also alter your visual perception, making you a danger behind the wheel if you go from scrolling on your screens for hours to behind a wheel of a car.

Technology and Negative Impacts on Your Mental Health

Technology can affect our physical wellbeing, but did you know it could have some startling effects on your mental health?

Let's examine some technology-related mental health disorders.

Nomophobia

Nomophobia is a phobia (irrational fear) of being without your phone (derived from "no-mobile-phone-phobia"). Nomophobia causes obsessive checking of your phone, and symptoms of anxiety when the sufferer can't check their phone (sweating, tachycardia, agitation, and so on). It was proposed for, though denied, inclusion to DSM-5, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders. According to a study commissioned in 2010 by the UK Post Office, 53% of British adults feel anxious when they "lose their phone, run out of battery or credit or have no network coverage". A further 9% admitted to anxiety when their phone is simply switched off.

Nomophobia has become so common that researchers at Iowa State University have invented the first Nomophobia Questionnaire (the NMP-Q). Along the lines of similar, recognised questionnaires used to diagnose depression or anxiety disorders, they ask respondents how they would feel "if you left your smartphone at home and had to spend the day without it."

If that question has sent you into a cold-sweat, you may be nomophobic.

Facebook Depression

More than 500 million people use Facebook every day. And yet a study by Kross and colleagues (2013) found that the more time their student participants spent on Facebook, the less happy they were. Another study by Blease found that 25% of college students using Facebook sometimes leave depressive statements on their wall, like "Having a bad day. Sometimes I wonder what it's all about."

READ The Good and the Bad of Facebook: How it Affects the Minds of Children

Several causes of Facebook Depression have been suggested:

• Cyberbullying: Depressive comments and cries for help may draw cruel comments as well as kind remarks from loving friends. Although there are methods in place, to unfriend or block, it takes minutes to set up a fake account and harangue a victim again.
• Many people online may be more successful or (by our own perception) attractive than we are. People can often feel like they are competing with everyone online. When they feel they have failed to meet up, depression sets in.

Researcher Charlotte Blease suggests that people are more likely to view themselves negatively if they spend a large amount of time reading a large amount of bragging notices from a large amount of apparently-successful Facebook "friends" (who they may not have actually met).

Also, many people who are mildly depressed may prefer to connect online rather than in real life. Unfortunately, rather than alleviating their loneliness, it only seems to highlight that everyone else seems to be doing much better than they are, which makes it worse.

Just remember, we don't see the full details of people's lives on Facebook. We don't see them at three in the morning, wiping sleep from their deeply-circled eyes, and with their hand covered in baby-sick. We see them perfectly-groomed and beaming with a scrubbed newborn sleeping like an angel in their arms. We see the highlights of their lives. And they're not the whole picture.

Internet Addiction Disorder

An internet addiction is exactly what it says. It is a compulsion to use the internet. People afflicted with this condition will lie so that they can use the internet, feel depressed or agitated if they are denied access, and feel euphoric when they are using the internet. A quarter of all children is addicted to the internet.

It is such a serious problem that it was added to the DSM-5 as a condition that required further research. Between 1.5 and 8.2% of all people in America and Europe is thought to suffer Internet Addiction Disorder.

READ Internet And Your Brain: Psychological Effects Of Online World

Sometimes the addiction is focused on online shopping or online gaming. This can lead to bankruptcy, if the individual makes a lot of purchases.

An SSRI medication called Escitalopram has shown improvement with Internet Addiction Disorder, reducing internet use from 36.8 hours a week to 16.5 hours a week. Therapy, such as Cognitive Behabioural Therapy, has also shown success in treating Internet Addiction Disorder. In treatment of Internet Addiction Disorder, the goal is not to prevent all use of the internet but to prevent maladaptive, obsessive use and allow the patient to have a full life in which there is room for other activities.

Do We Need To Cancel Our Facebook And Throw Out Our Phones?

You don't have to ditch your technology. However, it is important to regain some balance.

Be aware of screen-time limits:

• No screen-time for the under-2s
• 1 hour only for children under 5
• 2 hours recreational screen time(maximum)  for children aged 5-18 (excluding school-work)

No official limits exist for adults, but perhaps you could lead the way by setting themselves your own recreational screen limits. It'll be easier for your children to follow your screen-time rules if you're a role model.

Try these tips

Remember that technology is a tool, not your master. When something buzzes or dings, let it wait sometimes. If you're constantly on-call, people will always expect you to be on-call, even if you'd rather take a break.

READ Do YOU Display Any Internet Addiction Warning Signs?

Try a tech curfew, ninety minutes before you go to bed.

Make time to meet to your real friends in person. When you meet-up, turn off your phone, or at least put it on silent.

If you - or your child - are playing an interactive video game, warm-up first.

Observe safe playing time-limits, and then make-sure you take a break (this is doubly-important if a child is playing, or watching your play).

Finally, try to unplug from technology at least one day a week. Turn off your phone, your computers, your gaming consoles and be with your loved ones. Do some fun activities and remind yourselves of how it feels to really connect.

Sometimes, when we're surrounded by technology, we can forget that we're surrounded by people, too.