Five Ways Smartphones Can Harm You

AMILOADED MEDIA HUB NEWS UPDATE

In today’s world, smartphones have become important tools to perform a wide range of tasks effortlessly. However, while these devices offer various benefits, they can also pose significant risks. Here are how your phones can harm you:

1 Physical health risk

Using a smartphone for a long time, especially when the screen is too close to your eyes, can damage your eyes by causing

Digital eye strain (Eye strain): The blue light emitted by smartphones and other digital devices can scatter more in the eye than natural light sources, causing visual noise and overstimulation.

Blurred vision: staring at your smartphone for a long time can cause blurred vision and difficulty focusing.

Headaches: Eye strain can cause migraines.

Tech neck (Neck and shoulder pain): is any form of chronic neck or shoulder pain, soreness or stiffness caused by poor posture while using technology, such as phones or computers. Looking down at electronic devices causes the neck muscles to strain and the shoulders to slump forward. It also causes back pain.

Loss of focus flexibility: Excessive screen time can impact your ability to adjust vision to see at all distances quickly. Having a smartphone within sight or within easy reach reduces a person’s ability to focus and perform tasks.

Sleep Disruption: our brains are very sensitive to light, and the blue light emitted from cell phones and other electronic devices delays melatonin production. Lack of melatonin can make it difficult to fall asleep, which can lead to Sleeplessness and exhaustion over time.

To prevent and treat eye strain, you can try:

Using appropriate lighting

Reducing glare from screens

Adjusting your display settings

Blinking more and Wearing blue light glasses.

2 Mental health concerns

Addiction: Like the use of drugs and alcohol, you can get addicted to the use of your phone which can make you not be able to do without your phone or when you’re not with your phone pressing it you get restless.

Depression: Present research links excessive smartphone use with increased anxiety and depression among teens. Prolonged exposure to social media content increases depression in people, especially those prone to negative thinking.

Social Isolation: Excessive use of smartphones can make you not be socially able during physical conversations because you’re only confident only when you’re on your phone. Which can lead to loneliness, Lack of meaningful, close, intimate connections

3 Impact on productivity

Smartphones, beeping and buzzing with their alerts and notifications that incoming messages have arrived, interrupt flow, and can decrease productivity. Smartphones also prompt users to check them frequently, further impacting the ability to engage in consistently productive work. In addition to constant notifications and alerts that interrupt focus, apps are engineered to keep users hooked for extended periods, making it difficult for students to concentrate on academic tasks—even when their devices are just nearby. This persistent engagement can lead to procrastination and poor time management, as the temptation to check and interact with apps disrupts their ability to maintain productive, focused work.

4 Cyberbullying

While smartphones offer children and teens many ways to learn, connect with others, and have fun, they also can put children at risk of being cyberbullied. In addition to children and teens, adult are also exposed to cyber bully which can lead to depression or lose of self-worthy, increased social anxiety,

Su!cidal thoughts, stopping or deleting social media.

5 Privacy and security risks

Smartphones do not offer the best levels of protection in the form of security and privacy for individuals’ communications, thus leaving devices open to risks such as malware, surveillance and location tracking. It is now more common than not to see the “allow app to use location services” pop up when using a new app for the first time, but do we actually know what we are saying yes or no to?

It has been suggested that the biggest privacy threat from smartphones is one which we do not see but is always present, location tracking. Individuals’ whereabouts can be tracked 24/7 through the signals emitted/broadcasted from their device. Like laptops and computers, phones can get viruses and be affected by malicious software known as malware. This can be done by a device being hacked into or software being installed onto a device normally unknowingly.

Nation

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