We live in a technological world--alas. And while our devices facilitate all kinds of social interaction, our connectedness to global consciousness, and even helps us get from point A to B, there is a growing awareness that these things we have taken for granted as being helpful and useful and beyond any other human accomplishment might be causing major health issues. And while the jury is still out on the cause of cancer from cell phones, there are other health matters that need to be considered, namely technology hangover (which I have abbreviated as TH) Here's how you know you have it:
1. Headaches: This is one of the common threads of TH, which comes from staring at a glaring screen for hours on end. How many hours are you clocking on your various devices? 8, 12? Are you beginning to suffer from headaches? You may just have TH.
2. Sore eyes: How good can LED light be for your eyes for 8-12 hours? The problem is it's not just when we're working at our computer stations, but it's sitting in front of our computers, the on our phones while driving home, then on our tablets in our kitchen, living rooms, and bathrooms, then not our massive TVs at night till we fall asleep.
3. Exhaustion: There's nothing normal about being plugged into millions of pages of information all at your beck and call within seconds of being loaded. It's like working in the Library of Congress all day having immediate access to every book there, but they're coming at you in a split second almost as quickly as you're thinking about them. Totally overwhelming. We aren't hard wired well enough to handle information in such vast quantities in such whiplash efficiency.
4. Low self-esteem: Social media sites, Facebook especially, can create depression and low self-esteem. In the past, you had to hear things through the grapevine: what your neighbours were up to, how much money they were making, what kind of trips they were going on, what new toys they purchased. But now, you just tap your FB app and you are immediately up to speed on all the drama. Forget soap operas of the past--you can vicariously live through all the people in your network. This kind of real-time gossip leads to low self-image, shame, and envy.
5. Trouble turning off: You see it in your friends and loved ones--but rarely in yourself: the inability or struggle to turn the darn thing off, to unplug yourself from the matrix. It's really hard, isn't it? And how do you feel when you turn the phone or computer off? Like the world is almost standing still, that there is quiet--too much quiet--that there is little of interest. Feel that way? Like the real world is on your computer and the simulated world is what exists outside of that. That's the problem: our technology creates a world that over time we have adopted as the really real world; and the real world, the physical world, is merely an offshoot of the real world. Very strange.
6. FOMO: This is one of the great symptoms of the TH: Fear Of Missing Out. Do you ever get that? I get it sometimes when I'm not following news as closely as I like--as if being a few hours off the news sites I'm going to miss the big one. We can feel that way with all kinds of things: what our friends are talking about on FB, job opportunities on LinkedIn, new followers on Twitter.
There is something wrong with the TH. We are being dehumanized by our machines, which is why we have hangovers in the first place. We don't even know or understand their long-term impacts on human life; and yet we carry them in our pockets, hold them in our hands for hours, place them on our nightstand while we sleep. . . We have a hangover because we are not feeling human. We are substituting life for a flat screen
If you have TH, think of it as a blessing in disguise and a time to really put your desire to un-plug to the test. Get away from your computer more each day. Incorporate books into your work to increase your learning while giving your eyes a rest from the strain of the screen. Your TH is telling you something; your body's not happy, there's something wrong.
Don't be dismayed. Just get out from the technology for a while and reclaim your humanity.
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