Technostress

March 2, 2020

My body, my mind and perhaps the very essence of who I am, cannot decide whether to maintain relevancy in this futile attempt to locate pleasure experienced pain, while being liberated from a mechanism I was given to hold in my hand. An electronic device that seemingly has become a required attachment to the body, while it waits to be eternally ejected as part of the human form.

In an era where knowledge and information is as close as our fingertips we, as a whole, seem to become less and less informed with the importance of truly being. Social media and the constant connection are depriving people with what is happening right here, right now. The perplexity of being social and connected has our heads submerged further in the sand than an ostrich turning her eggs.

There are lots of reasons to be connected to people, but it is also a venue to be sucked into the false tragedy that rapidly seems to unfold. People are dedicating numerous hours of the day to be connected and involved in this performance of calamity. The social cellphone dominion has been conceived and orchestrated into a mind-controlling atmosphere, which has infested into all populated areas. As people become involved and obsessed with this addiction, they in fact are all physically standing alone with their mania. There is nothing real within their touch.

In 2000, when we slid into the twenty-first century, we officially become an urban species. This conceivably is not true for rural dwellers, but rural occupants have and will continue to become the true minority. Now in 2020 the population worldwide has grown to grown to 7.78 billion. According to the United Nations Population Division, by 2050 seventy five percent of the Worlds population will live in cities. The collateral damage of this is that we are also becoming an indoor species. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the average American now spends 93 percent of their time indoors, of which 6 percent is spent in a car. That leaves about a half day a week to be spent in the great outdoors. And, sadly, in fear of missing something, most individuals escaping the urban stalag do so with their mobile device.

Studies in the United States have found that people spend as much as ten hours and thirty-nine minutes a day consuming media in some shape or fashion. This is far greater then the average person spends sleeping, which is part of the human refueling regime.

The more time we spend with technology, the more time we are likely to suffer from it. In 1984, as technology started ramping up beyond recognition, the word, ‘technostress’ was coined to describe unhealthy behavior caused by technology. Technostress can arise from all manner of everyday usage or addiction, as it should also be coined.

Cell phone addiction has been linked to sleep disorders and fatigue. Using your cell phone before bed increases the likelihood of insomnia. The other signs of addiction are, the preoccupation of previous online activity or the anticipation of the next online session, constantly checking your phone for notifications, compulsively sharing updates, posts and pictures and feeling that you need to be continuously connected, via your device. Symptoms of Technostress run from anxiety to headaches, depression, eye and neck fatigue, frustration, and loss of temper. All this contributes to stress, which by the World Health Organization refers to as the health epidemic of the 21st century.

With the constant use of digital devices we have alienated the world as we stare into the light source of connection in the palm of your hand. You then act and feel surprised that nobody cares about the fragments that fall off as you enter a void that was empty when you arrived.

Put the cellphone down and not on the table that you’re sitting at, so you can keep an eye peeled for echoing and buzzing notifications. There is no need to constantly be on alert for another cellphone announcement. Allocate some alone time without your cell phone. Take a walk, read a real book, truly be with someone you love and give them your complete attention. It was not that long ago when we knew a life that existed without being tethered with antisocial umbilical.

Be the authority of your time with social media. It is not an indication it’s choice. Use it with intention. Follow who inspire and motivate you. Engage in knowledge and truth and stop mindlessly scrolling. Un-follow, delete, stop giving time to the hate mongers, the gossips, the drama queans, the untruths and the negative. Disengage and free yourself as you step outside and breathe in some natural positivity and joy. – dbA