The Other Side of the Modern Coin

Today’s world comes with many modern conveniences. We have computers in our pocket that connect us to the world and all its knowledge. We never have to get ourselves through rain, wind or snow to get ourselves a nice film to watch. We can call a taxi from pretty much everywhere we are. We can track our deliveries on our phone. And we have added a new world to our collective dictionaries: binge-watching. Yep, we are living our lives with all the modern conveniences that we wouldn’t believe were possible. But what about some of the adverse effects of all these modern perks? Here are a few of those modern health risks we all face.

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Text Neck

There is such a thing that is called text neck. It’s when continuous looking at your mobile phone and causing a repetitive stress injury and pain in the neck. This is why it’s so important to either hold your phone or tablet a bit higher and make sure your screen at work or home is at eye height and your neck isn’t strained at all. Also, make sure to take plenty of breaks between screen time moments and stretch and walk around!

Air Pollution

One of the biggest worries of living in urban areas is air pollution. Even if you don’t live in a city infamous for smog, there is going to be plenty of pollutants in the air. One of the biggest worries is bronchial diseases. This is the effect caused by excessive pollutants, exposure to metals, and toxic substances to micro-particles in the air. It’s no wonder that in some Asian countries, where air pollution is extreme, people started to wear mouth masks to prevent inhaling too many harmful particles.

Hearing Damage

If you look at the street scene in pretty much any urban environment, you’ll see that most people will be wearing headphones, ranging from small in-ear ones to massive over-the-ear cans. Take that and the ability to stream music over the air, you will understand that people are listening to music more than ever. Especially with listening to music while out and about, people tend to turn up their music a bit too much. The risk of that obviously is damage to your hearing. If you ever heard whooshing, buzzing, and/or ringing sounds when everything is quiet, it could be Tinnitus. Click here to find out more about this condition.

Excessive Screen Time

All this screen time, at work, at home, peering at your screen while traveling to catch one more AR game creature, or just staring at your screen in the dark while you're supposed to be trying to get to sleep, can’t be good for us. Well, it isn’t. There is such a thing as computer vision syndrome (CVS) that causes headaches, dry eyes, blurred vision, trouble focusing, sensitivity to light and burning or red eyes.

Today’s modern world comes with joys, but also risks you need to be aware of. As with everything, make sure you do things in moderation, when things start hurting or getting uncomfortable, don’t power through but listen to your body. Enjoy all the modern conveniences, but just remember there will always be new stuff, your body is only a lifetime.