Dangers of intensive smartphone useExcessive use of a smartphone poses a lot of health risks for the body, mind and soul. What they are and how you can protect yourself and your family against them, you will learn in this article.
© Robin Worral, unsplash.com
Intensive use of a smartphone or tablet can cause depression and weaken self-esteem. Why this is so, and what other health consequences excessive and improper media consumption can have, is the subject of this article. We encounter people everywhere with a smartphone in their hand or at their ear. Tapping the screen, swiping across it, or staring at it motionlessly.
Sometimes they still have headphones in their ears, so that not only the eyes but also the ears are busy. The smartphone changes the design of everyday life and lifestyle habits. It affects our attention. Communication with other people. Yes, the smartphone can have massive negative effects on the body and psyche – at least if we use it excessively in a certain way.
How smartphone and tablet affect health
According to a study, not only teenagers, but also adults spend two to three hours a day on the smartphone, exchanging ideas on Facebook and Whatsapp. The smartphone has a small screen. To be able to see exactly what the screen is showing and to be able to type something, we have to lower our head forward, let our shoulders droop and look intently at the screen.
Scientists are already talking about a "head-down generation" or "head-straight generation". "Head-down generation". So it's not surprising that two to three hours of lowering our head down has an impact on our neck muscles and posture. The bent back and lowered head can cause tension in the neck. The constantly bent arm possibly overloads the shoulder area. Muscles, nerves and tendons are put under a lot of strain. Orthopedists already speak of an "iPad shoulder" or an "iPad neck".
Overstraining fine motor skills can lead to tendonitis. Using your smartphone for hours on end can cause headaches. The curved posture causes us to breathe shallowly. This can affect lung function in the long run, even reducing it by up to 30 percent. As a result, the oxygen content in the blood is reduced. Vascular diseases can occur.
Recent research by the University of Fribourg in Switzerland shows that the brain structure of smartphone users changes after just a few weeks of use. The constant movement of fingers over the touchscreen surface causes their cortex to become more sensitive or sensitive in the areas associated with fingers. reacts more strongly. Not to mention that cell phone radiation has been linked to various diseases, such as cancer.
How smartphones and tablets can affect the psyche
Body, posture and psyche influence each other. When we feel depressed, we automatically adopt a depressed posture: we let z.B. Hanging our shoulders, lowering our head. If we are depressed, we can lift our mood simply by adopting the body language of a person in a good mood, i.e. by lifting our head, standing up straight and smiling. Our body posture has a great influence on our mental well-being.
If we adopt the posture of a depressed person, our mood is depressed. If we tend to think pessimistic thoughts and are often depressed, then we reinforce our negative feelings by adopting a "depressed" posture when using our smartphone.
Studies clearly show that our mood improves significantly when we consciously put on a smile, even if we don't feel like smiling. If we feel insecure and adopt an upright and confident posture, we immediately feel more self-confident. More about this in the self-knowledge experiment posture and feelings.
It is therefore not surprising that the posture we adopt when using our smartphone intensively also affects our mood. If we bend our back and lower our head, this is exactly the posture we adopt when we are sad and depressed. So we risk unconsciously and automatically by the intensive use of the smartphone and the associated posture a bad mood up to a negative, even depressed mood. A stooped posture also characterizes the posture of an insecure and shy person.
So when we look down at the smartphone for long periods of time, we thereby weaken our self-confidence and stamina. We even reduce our testosterol concentration in the blood and increase the stress hormone cortisol. Since the screen of the smartphone is very small, we have to concentrate extra hard and squint our eyes. This activates the muscle that is responsible for frowning and that we use when we are angry and worried.
Thus, by staring at the screen, we automatically trigger an angry or irritated emotional state in ourselves. In a survey conducted by the BBC, 40(!) percent of those over 50.000 16- to 24-year-olds surveyed say they feel lonely. Exactly this age group has the highest consumption of digital media.
Intensive use of digital media leads to loneliness!
No wonder. If you're always staring at your smartphone in public, you can't feel connected to the real people who are out there. Finally, the intensive use of the cell phone can lead to a psychological dependence on the cell phone. The intensive use of digital media can be just as addictive as increased alcohol consumption or excessive gaming on the Internet. This dependency then causes sufferers to panic when they don't have a cell phone handy or the battery is dead.
They are eager to be available and always need to know what is currently happening. They make their self-esteem dependent on whether others answer their mails, and suffer from anxiety and depression when they are not "in demand" or are no longer liked. Concentration can be reduced-. Sleep disturbances occur. Our partnership and sex life can suffer, for example due to digital jealousy.
How to use the smartphone without doing harm?
To stop using the smartphone would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. A smartphone can serve us well in everyday life. However, excessive consumption is harmful if we constantly look down when looking at the screen. Here are a few tips to prevent damage to our health.