Remember your parents used to scold you for sitting to close to the television? They would tell you that the screens would rot our brains and are bad for your eyes. When cellphones were introduced, everyone claimed that the radiation from them was damaging our brain cells. With new technologies introduced these days, things aren’t much different as new technologies come with new concerns. So what is the impact of technology on our health, really?
One of the most common concerns associated with the evolution of technology: ‘Do digital devices really impact our eyesight?’ According to The Vision Council the answer to this question is yes. ‘Many individuals suffer from physical eye discomfort after screen use for longer than two hours at a time.’ Our eyes did not develop to read tiny texts on tiny screens with bright lights. Some worry that the use of digital devices may also affect your head, neck, and shoulders, depending on your posture as you use different devices. However, the impact on our physical health does not stop here. Fatigue, lack of exercise and distraction are all harmful effects that are caused by the excessive use of social media on devices.
On the other hand, technology has also encouraged some to be more concerned with their health. We are entering a new era in which counting our steps via tech tools has become popular. Smart tech has made fitness a lot more fun for some that could really impact health in a positive way. Take for example the mobile application called ‘Sweatcoin’. Sweatcoin is a digital currency you ern by being active. Any time you walk or run outside, it tracks your steps and pays you in sweatcoins (SWC). For every 1,000 steps you take, you earn just under 1 SWC. After accumulating enough SWC, you are then able to redeem them for items like sport watches, Amazon credits, music downloads, e-Books or gift certificates to various retailers.
Another positive impact of technology is that is has been revolutionizing healthcare for the present and future of humanity. Recently, doctors in in Minnesota used 3D printing and virtual reality to safely and effectively separate conjoined twin infants. Before the implementation of these types of technologies, those conjoined twins may not have survived.
The point is, even if technology has impacted our health in some negative ways, it has also provided some incredible positive opportunities and revolutions for the long-term improvement of our health.
What do you think? Is technology’s impact on our health negative or positive from your perspective? Or is there a grey area?
Sources:
https://www.thevisioncouncil.org/content/digital-eye-strain
https://www.digitaltrends.com/health-fitness/what-is-sweatcoin/
https://sysomos.com/2016/10/27/can-social-media-affect-health/
Dear Emmy,
Thank you for this interesting article. You raised a question that will take time to be solved!
My opinion on this topic is that the current impact on our health is more negative than positive.
First, the positive impacts we can see are actually tangible and easy to be tracked, whereas negative impacts are still unknown and misunderstood.
Second, I feel like the health areas where it has a positive outcome are quite symbolic (such as very specific cases of surgery) or superficial (such as the number of steps per day, our heartbeat)… What about mental health for example? Even if some solutions are being implemented digitally, is it the good way? Moreover, even if people care more than before about knowing about these health data, I believe that this is not an actual profound change in our way of approaching health, but it is rather a trend that we are currently enjoying.
Of course, this question won’t be solved before seeing the actual impacts in the coming decades, however, we can also see it in a different way: maybe our DNA will adapt in the following generations, according to the increasing use of digital tools, which will then allow this technology to achieve its full potential and have a truly positive impact on humans.
All in all, I think that as you said, the positive impacts on humans’ health will appear on the long-term. The current transitioning phase is to me not beneficial to physical health per se.
Thank you for having raised this question! I hope to have your opinion on this as well.
Kind regards,
Sabrina
Thank you for this interesting post, Emmy. This subject is very interesting to me, and the questions at the end of your blog are valid ones, in my opinion. I think we have to make a clear distinction between daily-used technology by consumers and technology used in professional, large scale manners. The development of the latter is in almost all cases simply a good thing. It is indeed impressive to see the improvements in the medical world, but the same applies to, for example, the construction and agriculture industry. However, in the case of the daily-used technology for individual consumers, I think the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages. In the coming years, we will face the negative impact of smartphones and others screens. The amount of people with sight-problems increases: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/digital-devices-screen-time-damaging-childrens-eyes-vision/. Many other problems may evolve as well, like the Computer Vision Syndrome: https://www.friendsforsight.org/resources/eye-health-awareness/item/100-health-risks-of-digital-screen-use-by-children.
So, I think the majority of the people are having difficulties with the proper use of upcoming technologies. Of course, people are trying to use health-apps etcetera, but I do not think this solves or outweighs the aforementioned problems. Technology is a good and admirable thing, but maybe we need more and new education on technical temperance, on how to use technology, and on what the negative consequences can be if not used the right way.. I am curious about your opinion on this notion.
Hi Emmy, nice blog! To answer your question, I think that the effects of technology on our health are still pretty ambiguous. Just as you mentioned, technology can have a negative effect on our eyesight. Next to that, it can also negatively affect our hearing, as everyone is using headphones these days and depending on the volume of the music, listening to music can be detrimental to your hearing in the long term. Some might even argue that listening at high volumes will cause permanent hearing loss (Felt, 2018).
At the same time, technological developments open up new opportunities. A big trend is the emergence of wearables that are able to monitor your health, think about resting heart beat or number of steps taken per day. The new apple watch even provides the option to take an ECG, something that was only possible to do in hospitals up to this point. Furthermore, I think that technology (smartphone applications) may incentivize people to get into shape or improve their mental health since the (free) application can be downloaded easily, making the boundaries to start working out a lot lower.
In the end, I would argue that the effect of technology on our lives really depends on the way we use it. Do we listen to music at absurdly loud volumes, even though we know it can hurt our hearing, or do we use a new wearable to become more informed about daily activities and start walking more if we need to? So I think that technology could empower people in becoming more healthy, as long as they have the intrinsic motivation (technology won’t help you with that).
Felt, C. (2018). Understanding the positive and negative effects of technology on health. Retrieved from https://www.toolbox.com/blogs/cristinefelt/understanding-the-positive-and-negative-effects-of-technology-on-health-022818.