A person's mental and physical health can be significantly impacted by a variety of lifestyle and health-related behaviors. Some mental and physical health issues may be exacerbated by modern lifestyle choices. Let's take a look at how our current way of life might affect our mental and physical health.
How Our Modern Lifestyle Affects Our Mental and Physical Health plus Our Responsibility to Children
Introduction
Technological advancements and social media platforms have accelerated life's pace. Human lifestyles in the modern era, including technology and social media, are a multifaceted compilation and synthesis.
Every aspect of our lives is being altered so rapidly by communication channels and connection sources that it can be challenging to adjust. Many people's lives have been improved by technology, including nearly half of adults. For instance, it is extremely challenging to imagine life without a smartphone in developed nations like India and the United States of America.
Are social media and text messaging, as well as technology, affecting people's physical and mental health? The mental and physical health of users of modern technology can be significantly affected. Psychological issues such as distraction, the expectation of instant satisfaction, narcissism, and even depression can arise if you are overly attached to or highly dependent on modern equipment.
However, you can manage your mental health by balancing online and offline social interactions, controlling screen time, and moving forward. Here, we'll take a look at some of the ways in which people's physical and mental health have been affected by modern lifestyles and technology.
Impact of the Modern Lifestyle on Human Health
A lifestyle is a way of life that can be followed by individuals, groups, and nations and is shaped by particular geographical, economic, cultural, political, and spiritual texts. Way of life is alluded to as the qualities of the occupants of territory at a specific overall setting. It includes people's everyday actions and roles in activities, jobs, diet, and fun.
Since 60 percent of related factors to individual health and quality of life are correlated with human lifestyle, lifestyle as a crucial factor of health has become a very interesting topic for researchers in recent decades.
Worldwide, millions of people lead unhealthy lifestyles; consequently, they must face diseases, disabilities, or death. An unhealthy lifestyle can lead to a number of serious issues, such as joint and skeletal problems, metabolic diseases, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and violence, among others.
It is important to give careful consideration to the connection between lifestyle and health.
All people's lives have undergone significant shifts in the modern era. Dietary insufficiency, malnutrition, alcohol consumption, drug use, smoking, stress, anxiety, and a host of other indicators point to an unhealthy way of life they have adopted.
In addition, citizens must confront new obstacles in their lives. For instance, emerging new technologies like the Internet and virtual communication networks pose significant threats to people's physical and mental health. The problem lies in the excessive and improper use of technology.
Therefore, the following may be inferred from the most recent studies: The way we live our lives has a significant impact on our mental and physical health. These effects come in multiple forms. Cognition is a significant way of life that can contribute to genetic diseases in some ethnic groups.
Changing this unhealthy lifestyle is one way to prevent genetic disorders from happening more often. Misusing or overusing medications may be a major contributor to unhealthy lifestyles in some nations.
Antibiotics, on the other hand, have a negative effect on the immune system when taken internally. Antibiotics will not be effective in treating the patient if they have any kind of infection.
In total, 10% of people who self-medicate may experience serious side effects like drug resistance. Sometimes, a drug allergy is so bad that it can kill you.
Impact of Modern Technology on Human Health
Modern technology may have a significant impact on the mental and physical health of its users. Being too associated will lead to mental issues like an interruption, the assumption for instant satisfaction, self-absorption, and even depression.
The use of technology may also have a negative impact on one's physical health, causing problems with vision, neck strain, and hearing loss, in addition to affecting the users' psychological state. Individuals' lives are facilitated by cutting-edge technology.
Utilizing technology improperly could result in undesirable outcomes. For example, if you use a smartphone, computer, or other devices until midnight, it could affect how you sleep and cause sleep disturbances.
The connection between depression symptoms and mobile phone or internet addiction is discussed. Nowadays, people are so preoccupied with technology and social media that it can be very uncomfortable to leave any of them.
Thusly, the paces of innovation and web-based entertainment use are quickly climbing. Facebook and Instagram alone are said to have a combined two billion monthly users worldwide.
People now use text messaging and social media to communicate with their social pages or groups. In fact, social media and text messaging are now more common than face-to-face interactions for many teenagers and young adults. The technology is so widespread that sometimes crossing appears impossible.
The American Psychological Association's report on stress states that 99 percent of adults in the United States own electronic devices; 74% own a smartphone, 55% a tablet, and 86% own computers. This could be a sign of success and empowerment, but there's also a negative side to it.
We can say that all of these scientific and technological advancements have deprived us of inner peace and tranquility as indicated in How Modern Lifestyle Affects Public Health
What Effects Does Our Modern Lifestyle Have On Our Health?
Well-Being and the Digital Cloud
A lot of people agree that occasionally separating from or detoxing from digital media is very important for mental health; only 28% of these people occasionally switch off from technology. The well-being and contentment of an individual can be significantly impacted by interactions and conversations on social media networks.
Numerous studies have demonstrated a link between spending more time on social media and an increased risk of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. This raises the following query: Are those who are miserable and unhappy using social media, or does social media influence happiness?
Happiness
According to the relationship contradiction, the majority of people are less popular than their friends on social media, which can cause them to be less joyful and happy. As far as we are aware, it has never previously been demonstrated that social media users are not only less happy but also less popular than their friends.
According to the findings of this study, popularity and happiness are linked, and the majority of people who use social media are not as happy as their friends because of this connection. Overall, the study's report indicates that comparing their popularity and happiness to that of their friends may cause social dissatisfaction, unhappiness, or grief to rise.
People who use social media and are content with their lives may believe that their friends are more popular and happier than they are, whereas people who use social media and are unhappy are more likely to have unhappy friends who still appear to be more popular and happier than they are overall.
Isolation
Social media use may also have an impact on one's psychological state or mental health.
Adults between the ages of 19 and 32 who use social media more frequently are more likely to become socially isolated.
The prevalence of psychological issues and social isolation among young adults makes it difficult to analyze such issues. Instead of uniting us, modern life tends to bring us apart. Although it may appear that social networks provide opportunities to fill social voids, numerous researchers contend that they cannot be the initial solution.
Depression
According to the study's findings, young adults who spend a lot of time on social media are more likely to suffer from depression. Constant checkers were 2.8 times more likely than those who checked their emails and social media accounts less frequently to develop depression, fatigue, and obesity.
People do not have to completely abandon social media; their spirits can be lifted simply by altering their behavior on social networking sites and occasionally taking a break. The study's report says that "lurking" on Facebook can make people feel bad. Positively, however, actively connecting with close friends can actually improve well-being, whether in person or online via Facebook and other platforms.
The rise of the "constant checker"
Constantly checking electronic devices is linked to higher levels of stress. Over the past ten years, social media and technological advancements have led to the "constant checker."
A person who constantly, almost obsessively, checks their social media accounts, texts, and emails is known as a constant checker. Being interminably or unendingly associated with this approach has been connected with higher feelings of anxiety.
In addition, 18% of respondents identified technology use as a significant cause of stress. Those who are less frequently associated with technology and social media experience a significantly higher level of stress than those who are constantly checked. For instance, compared to 26% of non-constant checkers, 43% of constant checkers are concerned about the effects of social media on their physical and mental health.
In addition, despite being in the same room, more constant checkers than non-constant checkers feel isolated from their families as a result of technology, and more than a third of constant checkers indicate that they are unlikely to meet with friends and family as a result of engaging in social media.
Video gaming and hostility
Computer games for youngsters are different wellsprings of commitment that have a terrible standing; Video games and violence may be connected, according to some research. However, there is no evidence of a link between violence in real life and aggression in video games or movies.
There are a number of resources or meditations in society to dedicate to the issue of reducing crime. Media violence, for example, has the potential to divert attention from a number of pressing issues, such as poverty, impoverishment, education, professional inequalities or vocational disparities, and psychological state.
The analysis report reveals that, while spending four hours a day playing video games can make teenagers feel depressed, using social media and instant messaging on a regular basis can help some people feel better.
While playing computer games for four hours every day might be a troubling way of behaving, not every person who does it is in danger of creating side effects of melancholy, enslavement, or nervousness. This could be part of a typical biological process or a general pattern of development if the teenagers spend a lot of time together playing games or online chatting.
In spite of the likely dangers to a mental state, patterns somewhat recently show that the utilization of innovation and virtual entertainment is expanding, thusly these issues don't appear to vanish quickly, and there is no chance of working on propensities.
How can Parents Control Their Children's Screen Time?
Parents frequently attempt to balance their children's screen time, which may be making it difficult for them to limit digital family connections. Evidence such as the link between smartphone screen time and poor sleep quality, the connection between smartphone screen time and internet addiction, and the link between the mobile phone and depression or anxiety in college students has increased the significance of parental technical surveillance.
However, children's screen time is not at all harmful. At the highest level of attachment, the evidence for a connection between screen time and well-being is also weak. Education, socialization, personal organization, and work are just a few of the areas in which screens are quickly becoming ingrained.
Setting a tight line on-screen time probably won't go on with the countless manners by which the screen has turned into an important piece of chic life. Teens' well-being is unaffected by medium screen use. Physical and mental effects are only marginally associated with the degree of excessive screen time and teen depression.
Millions of people worldwide must deal with mental anguish and may not receive mental health services assistance. Smartphone applications may make it easier to provide cost-effective and interesting treatment options in light of this disparity between the need for services and their accessibility.
Conclusion
Modern life can raise the risk of certain physical and mental health issues. It is very difficult to live with such psychological conditions, and any delay in treatment may make the symptoms of diseases worse. However, balancing online and real-world social relationships and maintaining a positive outlook can help us keep our mental health in check.They can also be treated to get rid of them.
A social and individual healthy lifestyle can be achieved through systematic planning at the micro and macro levels for each factor.
References
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2016.0259
https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-017-0100-1
https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(17)30016-8/fulltext
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4853817/
https://academic.oup.com/joc/article-abstract/65/1/E1/4082340
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797616678438