Negative Side Effects Of The Legal Drug – Technology

Throughout the past 15 years technology has been advancing with incredible achievements it does to society. From smartphones to social media to even having mobile apps on cars, the platform of technology has been improved which consists of the total global population using it daily. This creates a habit for many people using technology at least in one form in a daily basis. With many people enjoying the fact technology creates one’s life simpler, individuals do not realize how harmful it's affecting their lives without a notice. It is very easy for someone to get hooked on the platform since it's now a part in every aspect in life. However, the advancements in technology takes on a serious negative effect to an individual which harms physical health, communication skills, and overall psychical health. To begin, with technology increasing, it will also show to have negative aspects such as the effect on health overall.

In a recent article on health published by Bekah Witten, she is the content writer for the University of South Florida’s Health Information Systems, and a recent graduate from the University of Tampa, she states that technology is affecting our health in a negative way because we sit for hours looking at a screen causing us to lose our eye sight. Bekah also explains that many individuals are losing eye sight because of the screens brightness; being focused on a screen having our eyes adjust to bright pixels (phone/tv screens/computer screens) causes the eye to lose its sight over long periods of time. According to The Vison Council, they were asked if screens actually affect eye loss. The short answer is yes. They wrote, "Many individuals suffer from physical eye discomfort after screen use for longer than two hours at a time. Our eyes are simply not made to be looking at screens with high brightness. This is why many are starting to use glasses and use special eye medications because the whole population is now hooked on their phones. " They also added a question, "Have you ever looked at your phone in the middle of the night, only to be partially blinded by the brightness? Our eyes did not develop to read tiny texts on small screens with high brightness. "

Bekah went into further detail on how the human eyes are not meant to be focused on TV screens as well. This was proved to cause eye strain just as much as smart phones. The human eye can only take a certain amount of light per day, so with accumulating hours on the phone can lead to severe eye strain which ultimately lose the Vison of the eye. This is a major health issue many seem to not notice as it is the foundation of our life being able to see. As this falls to be a major health issue, technology is also harmful to other body parts such as obesity and gaining weight. Nevertheless, technology takes the effect on physical health such as weight gain and obesity. The daily habits of the current adult in this generation now consists of texting, online shopping, and staying home to sleep. A lot of people forgot about the way our grandparents use to live which would consist of playing sports, excising, and enjoying Mother Nature. Even with the simple tactic to turn on the TV manually, many relay so deeply our remote controls will help make our lives simpler. Since many individuals rely on remote controls to turn on a TV and other sources to work such as sending messages, turn on objects, or even use electronics to entertain us, we are essentially becoming lazier.

NBC news article titled spending on technology equals more obesity, study shows written by Maggie fox a news journalist explains" for every 10 percent rise in what a country spends on information and communication technology, there's a 1 percent increase in obesity rates. " Many individuals focus more on their duties in life such as school, work, service, volunteer work, etc. which causes them to forgot about the need to exercise. The typical American uses their time off to watch movies on Netflix, scroll unless hours on YouTube, and for some even go on Instagram till bedtime to follow the latest news. While many seem to concentrate on these, they often find themselves going to sleep and having the next day hit only to repeat the same schedule all over again. Technology takes away the sense of reality for people to realize going outside and using the outdoors to find activities such as going for a walk is completely normal.

Obesity is caused by sitting in your room doing no activity for days. The stored fat in your body starts to add up. Each day that goes by the less movements a person does, the more they start to adjust to that lifestyle. Might want to start realizing eating pizza and “netflixing” is causing more harm than good. Technology explains to contribute negative attributes to health but also leads to losing cognition. Moreover, social interactions by the use of technology have contributed to a decline in cognition. In the past, an individual was taught to use proper Social skills when communicating. This was taught in an early age and develops through happening on a daily basis. Now times have changed, social interactions decreased but interactions raised though technology. The Liberty Classical Academy goes into further detail of losing more social abilities and skills. On their recent article published on libertyclassicalacdemy. org titled "how technology is affecting social skills" their explanation goes into detail in order what is being lost: eye contact, conversation, spiritual awareness and dangerous distraction attention span.

Eye contact is an important role in communication. On a recent article from Pennsylvania state university titled “Are Cell Phones Running Our Social Skills” published September 16, 2015 by Haley Amada Toadsville, Ph. D in psychology from the University of Texas. She states “Communication is a crucial human ability everyone should participate in the importance of talking and being social with others as we are social creatures. Since we don’t talk to others on a daily is because us humans lost the ability to talk to others because we are often too attached to our phones being distracted from engaging to others. In a recent study done by Tamara Pierce, it was shown couples spend more time texting each other with affectionate words than saying it verbally face to face. The amounts of intimacy is lost because of the lack of communication in person. In addition, social skills interactions are severely damaged through impersonal communication because a person doesn’t simply know the foundation of basic social skills. They are unable to express facial expressions, basic body language, and tone but are able to through text messaging. The science behind this shows many are more comfortable being behind a screen rather than talking in a real life communication. This will tend to leave humans no knowing what to do in a real life stetting when one is encountered.

In addition, Technology has taken a negative role in people’s physiological health which causes negative effects on themselves. Extensive technology uses has been linked with the term stress, insomnia, anxiety and depression with all having a relationship with each other. The term depression and anxiety often comes up with the relation of using technology. For example, Jean Twenge of the San Diego state university and colleagues examined national statistics on social media use, depression, and suicide-related outcomes in over 500, 000 people. Individuals who spent more time on smartphones and social media reported more mental health issues, whereas those who spent more time on non-screen activities like face to face interactions, sports, and religious services reported fewer.

Many argue the rise of technology has given us the benefits to use communication much easier than before but fail to conduct face to face interactions. Social interactions and face to face interactions are not interchangeable, digital communication can directly be used towards anxiety in ourselves. More individuals mediate social connection through digital devices, the more superficial and impoverished their social expressions are. Like any skill, the practice of this lacks the ability to strengthen emotional resilience, and social emotional communication. All these factors often result in greater anxiety, stress, and worriedness. Furthermore, Social media often leads to depression and anxiety. This became crucial over the period of time individuals started using technology to attach their life in. As many do not focus what harm it can bring to themselves. According to benliefnet. com article titled “the relationship between technology and depression, states People who put their whole lives on social media and subconsciously obsess on how many likes they can receive on their posts. Because of this, social media allows individuals to portray themselves in a certain way where most people only see the best sections of their Instagram friend’s lives. This leads to jealously, resentment and unhappiness comparing to their own lives. This opens the door for cyberbullying to happen. This can be more harmful and vicious than in person bullying. Cyberbullying can be more harmful because how bullies can hide anonymously behind a keyboard. In many cases since for the victim to fight back they simply become suicidal or become severely depressed.

All in all, technology will be increasing as the future carries on time. With time only increasing, its best to understand the negative effects technology has to offer. Technology has proven be negative in human health, social skills, and carrying on anxiety along with it. Many humans believe technology to be only beneficial as a way to make life simpler. Technology only harms us in many aspects throughout our lives internally and externally. As a result, the individual fails to analyze and see the argumentative side to which technology fails upon. Human health takes a role with the connection to depression and other significant behaviors. Social media has contributed to the decline of human connection for learning and the use of cognition for thinking.