The best friend of a modern person - a smartphone and the Internet? Or does a person need a person? The rapid development of gadgets and the Internet also has a negative side.
These are the diseases that technology causes.
Brush or finger hurts - influence of keyboard, mouse and smartphones
Following back and neck pains, many people began to complain of numbness and pain in the wrist area. The most common of the "new" diseases of gadget fans is carpal tunnel syndrome, aka carpal tunnel syndrome. Most often, people who are typing large amounts of text suffer: secretaries, journalists, translators. In recent years, tunnel syndrome has been diagnosed in gamers. They make heavy use of a keyboard and mouse or gamepad.
What is Tunnel Syndrome? Hands when using a mouse or gadget are unnaturally bent at the wrists. This can compress the nerve and cause pain in the hand and numbness in the fingers. Another disease associated with the constant activity of the same type of the same muscles, like typing or scrolling on a smartphone screen, is tendovaginitis, in which the tendon sheaths become inflamed. It also hurts very, very much.
Regular smartphone users are increasingly complaining of pain in their hands.
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Tech blogger and startup Om Malik refused the iPhone 7 Plus due to tunnel syndrome. “How many injuries have people inflicted on themselves since the start of the era of touch-interfaces? Gadgets have gotten bigger and taken root in our lives. It means that I am not the only one who has suffered,”Malik is sure. Because of pain in his left wrist and thumb, he had to switch to the iPhone SE. Most likely, he will have an operation.
How to protect yourself. Doctor's advice:
“Preventing tunnel syndrome and tendovaginitis is easier than curing. You need to take breaks from work every half hour. In addition, the simplest gymnastics is useful: shake your hands, squeeze into fists, use an expander. Enemies of a person with a gadget are monotony and the use of the same muscles. Try to add variety to your movements by alternating with relaxation. - Nina Antonenko, general practitioner, candidate of medical sciences
Deteriorated vision - harm from display radiation
Remember the huge CRT monitors that were carefully hung with protective nets and decorated with cacti? The world has changed, screens have become thinner and show cooler images. However, the screens of computers and gadgets still spoil vision.
Any screen is a source of light. Plus, it has a lot of small details that you have to peer into. If you are also holding it in your hands or on your knees, it is constantly in motion. This leads to visual fatigue and a shift in circadian rhythms - these are biological processes associated with the change of day and night. Even manufacturers have paid attention to the problem of eye fatigue of users. Many smartphones and tablets are introducing "evening" mode with a blue filter.
Gadgets are especially harmful to children. They often hold their phone or tablet very close to their eyes and spend hours playing games or watching cartoons. Due to the constant focus of the gaze, the child's vision deteriorates and myopia develops. For many children, ophthalmologists prescribe glasses.
How to protect yourself. Doctor's advice:
“Glasses with protective lenses and gymnastics for the eyes will help to avoid overstraining the eye muscles. Ideally, take a break every hour (for children every forty minutes) to give your eyes a rest. It is recommended to look away from the screen, blink several times, focus on objects located in the distance. - Vladimir Zolotarev, ophthalmologist.
Addiction, attention deficit - too much information
Gadgets are everywhere with us, and we spend several hours a day on the Internet. Apart from work or study, there are too many important things to do. "Sofa troops" attack, the trolls are enraged, as well as other people's vacation photos. And also disputes about politics, sports, cryptocurrencies (depending on what is in trend).
The constant use of smartphones also leads to psychological changes.
Addiction to social media or online games is a serious disorder that is difficult to recognize. A person seems to be just wasting time online: shopping, playing, liking videos. The more difficult it is to diagnose compulsive internet use.
Other ailments are attention deficit disorder and limited brain atrophy. Children are especially susceptible to both disorders. The Internet gives out too much information. We grab it in parts in order to somehow sort it out. An eternally overloaded brain loses focus.
There is simply no place for memorizing information in such a situation. Easier to Google. Namely, in the process of learning, neural connections are formed in the brain, on which the "speed" of the brain depends.
How to protect yourself. Doctor's advice:
“Clip thinking is figurative, its antipode is textual thinking. You need to read texts more, and not watch videos. As far as internet addiction is concerned, this is a change in psychology. If a person has nothing but the virtual, he begins to migrate to that world. To prevent this from happening in young children, you need to educate them. If a mother, when a child cries, shoves him a smartphone, why be surprised at the addiction? Practice shows that such behavior is a consequence of other, deeper problems in the family. Internet addiction is a vivid symptom. - Alexander Fedorovich, psychotherapist of the highest category.
You are overweight, your back hurts - a sedentary lifestyle
The Internet has broken down borders and connected people. On the other side of the coin - we have sat too long. With a computer and a smartphone, you can communicate with millions of people without leaving your chair. All services are already available online: from delivering groceries to ordering cleaning in the apartment.
The problem is the way we work with gadgets. At the table, we look forward, but most often the laptop or monitor is positioned so that we have to look down. Plus, you need to find a comfortable chair and adjust it for yourself.
Sedentary work quickly affects health.
Few people do it seriously. The spine is the first to suffer. Slouching and poor posture are the first signs. Prolonged sedentary lifestyles lead to back and neck pain. Moreover, the curvature of the spine may change. Neglected neck diseases lead to dizziness, problems with blood pressure, headaches. Back problems can lead to sciatica.
Another popular disease is obesity. We not only move a little, but also eat somehow.
How to protect yourself. Doctor's advice:
“Get up and move. You can't waste calories sitting on a chair. Moreover, gadgets can help you lose weight. There are game consoles with outdoor games, pedometers, applications. An important point: try to keep gadgets and food separate. Stop crunching chips to a movie, drinking cola while playing, and eating pizza while flipping through social media. The brain simply does not control the volume and quality of food in this case, and you gain weight."
Mental illnesses caused by the Internet and mobile phones
American doctors have documented several other mental illnesses that have recently appeared in people, believed to be due to the spread of the Internet and excessive attachment to mobile devices. Experts have described eight of the most common mental illnesses that often develop in people who actively use the network.
It has already been proven that an excessive passion for the Internet seriously harms the ability to concentrate on one text for more than thirty seconds. It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to read long articles with complex sentences and concentrate on the content. And doctors assure that these are far from the last consequences that modern technologies have awarded us. And some of them are already officially recognized as a disease.
Nomophobia, or fear of being left without a mobile phone
It develops in people dependent on mobile communications. The disease affects users who diligently follow the development of the industry and devote more than two hours a day to their mobile phone. And in the absence of access to a mobile phone, patients experience anxiety. In a clinical case of the disease, a person without a telephone goes into a real panic.
In total, almost 99% of active smartphone users in the United States suffer from nomophobia. To prevent the disease, psychiatrists recommend reducing the use of a smartphone to the required minimum - calls to loved ones. Mail and news reading do not fall under the definition of a "necessary minimum".
Phantom call syndrome
Phone fans are also often prone to phantom ringing syndrome - a person develops auditory and motor hallucinations, it seems to him that the phone in his pocket rings or vibrates, although nothing really happens.
The disease develops against a background of stress, and is also very widespread. According to the research of Dr. Larry Rosen, who is purposefully studying the impact of mobile technologies on the human psyche, 70% of people who call themselves inveterate fans of modern technologies at least once an hour feel that their phone vibrates in their pocket - even if the phone is first laid out on the table.
The syndrome is treated approximately like stress - with the help of an individual course of antidepressants, vacation and refusal from high-tech devices for a long time.
Cyber disease, or "digital seasickness"
This ailment appears due to the abuse of the use of smartphones and tablet computers. Patients are really "sick" from using the phone - this is explained by the visual effects of the interface and the disorder of the vestibular apparatus.
The fact is that modern screens imitate the surrounding reality too well - which disorients the brain. Accordingly, the higher the picture quality, the more likely this problem will occur. Today, about 90% of Americans are susceptible to this disease - researchers cannot yet give an exact figure due to the range of brands of mobile devices.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of test participants complained of nausea and dizziness after prolonged use of the smartphone. At the moment, there is no cure for the disease as such - doctors recommend reducing the time spent with the phone, tablet and in front of the computer screen.
Google Effect
Those suffering from the "Google effect" are sure that they do not need knowledge, since any information is just a click away. In this case, even those who do not share this belief are susceptible to the disease - the brain simply refuses to remember information, regardless of human will.
Today in the United States, it affects about 40% of teenagers under the age of 25. In the long term, the seemingly harmless Google Effect is fraught with sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease.
Facebook depression
This condition is expressed in the fact that people become depressed from contacts in the social network, or from their absence. Psychologists explain this by the fact that in social networks people, as a rule, post only those photos and news about themselves that show them in a favorable light. Thus, the user gets the impression that friends and acquaintances have a better, brighter and richer life than him.
Researchers at the University of Michigan note that the percentage of young people suffering from depression is directly proportional to the amount of time they devote to social networking. In general, the disease is recommended to be treated with the same means as usual depression. In addition, psychologists advise taking a desperate step by modern standards and simply retire from social networks.
Internet addiction
Those suffering from it constantly want to get access to the Internet. Desire completely supplants any needs, and forces you to give up work and personal life. Addiction is about to be equated with drug addiction.
The researchers note that Internet addiction in the long run produces a strong inferiority complex in people, coupled with low self-esteem. In addition, addiction is fraught with the degradation of social skills, up to the inability to call an ambulance.
At the moment, psychiatrists are considering the possibility of drug treatment, but so far they recommend that patients be isolated from places where they will have access to the Internet. Note that in the United States, one after another, special camps for Internet addicts, like summer camps, are being opened.
Online gambling addiction
The dependence on online games is very similar to it, which, however, is famous for being more destructive. There are often cases when a game drags a person into the virtual world, as a result of which he loses his job, family, and sometimes his life.
By the way, this is so far the only addiction generated by the world of high technologies, in which a person develops a physical need to play, up to the appearance of withdrawal symptoms.
According to official figures, about 8% of the total US population suffers from addiction. People aged 9 to 39 are especially susceptible to it. At the moment, addiction is considered very dangerous, and psychologists are developing comprehensive programs to get rid of it.
Cyberchondria
Finally, people with cyberchondria believe that they have a medical condition that they read about on the Internet, and, as a rule, more than one. As a result, a healthy person who simply has a headache can convince himself that he has serious problems.
Here a kind of "distorting mirror of the Placebo effect" plays a serious role - a person at a subconscious level begins to convince himself that he is terminally ill. The brain actively collects information coming from the organs of perception, and a person begins to notice in himself all the insignificant changes that he did not pay attention to before. Constant nervous tension ultimately leads to the appearance of all kinds of diseases.
Given that hypochondria existed long before the advent of the Internet, researchers are hesitant to say exactly how many people are affected by cyberchondria. Nevertheless, the disease began to occur more often due to the availability of all kinds of reference materials on the Web.
