Tech Talk: Take care of your digital well-being

It’s become nearly inescapable: you start your morning by grabbing your phone and looking at e-mails or news. Then you get up, go to work, and stare at a screen for 8 hours. Then you go home, watch TV, maybe play a video game, or browse social media.

Think about it.

New refrigerators have screens. Coffee machines have screens. Even toasters have screens. For some people, this means most of their waking hours are spent staring at a screen. … And who could have foreseen it? Staring into an illuminated panel for 14 hours isn’t all that great for you — mentally or physically.

Even as early as the ’90s, if people spent too much time playing video games, they’d be told to go play outside for a while, and this was one case where your parents definitely knew best.

The physical impacts are slow and can creep in over time before you even notice. For starters, too much screentime can give you a headache, it can negatively impact your eyesight, dry out your eyes, and otherwise cause eye strain.

At the same time, using a computer or phone almost always generates some kind of slouched posture, and while we’re at it, sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day has never done anything great for anyone’s physique.

From a psychological perspective, almost every study done has concluded that too much screen time has a massively negative impact on sleep, induces anxiety, can contribute to depression, and can cause stress. This can be compounded by the tendency to “doom-scroll,” that is, to obsessively consume social media or news, which can contribute to depression.

So, if you spend a lot of time staring at a screen, your back hurts, you have a headache, you aren’t sleeping well, you feel sad, stressed, and anxious … maybe it’s time to take a break and go for a walk. Or read a newspaper.

In all seriousness, consciously building in limits for how long you look at a display is probably the easiest way to combat any of these effects. I can personally vouch for this: I read constantly, both for work and at home, and when I’m reading a physical book vs. looking at my tablet, I’m noticeably more relaxed, and I generally sleep better as well.

Other options include creating rooms in your house where no screens are allowed — for example, the kitchen or dining room — to try to reduce the use of devices and provide a break in activities.

Even devices themselves are building in functionalities to reduce the impact of how their displays work – from incorporating blue light filters to offering greyscale modes, to using e-ink in the case of tablet readers that aren’t backlit. But all of those are really only stopgaps to reduce the impact, and don’t fully eliminate it.

Stepping away and doing something else, going for a walk, taking a breath, or even exercising, will almost always be beneficial. People aren’t designed to stay in one space staring at a lit-up box for hours on end, yet that’s what makes up the majority of the day for many.

People are not designed for the high-technology world we live in today, and making allowances for your own wellbeing will become increasingly important as time passes, because those screens won’t be going away anytime soon.