Excessive Use of Social Media Bad for Health: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is the name given to a condition which is caused by excessive use of social media and the smartphone to access the sites. As the social media craze has grown exponentially during this past few years, almost one-fourth of the world could be found on these websites.
A term called “whatsappitis” is used to describe a condition where the thumb muscles are getting damaged due to excessive use of thumb in order to type the messages or scroll through the content. The actual name for this condition is tenosynovitis.
How Excessive Use of Social Media Impacting Life
A Study of the matter
Dr Aashish Chaudhry, who is the Managing Director and Orthopaedic Surgeon at Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital say that increased addiction to social media and the role of smartphones in this addiction can cause problems related to the joints and ligaments present in the fingers. As if the situation wasn’t bad for the users’ hands, it also affects the neck muscles and tendons. The posture which is termed as “text neck” results in the early onset of spine damage in the patients. Most of them are way too young.
The term “text neck” is relatively new and is coined during the past few years. This strain injury was rare a decade ago. But now even kids are suffering from pain in shoulder and neck muscles. In some cases, it also affects the back of the patient.
Dr Ishwar Bohra, who is a senior consultant at BLK super speciality hospital says that by using the phone for a long time one could suffer from weakness in the muscles of hand, inflammation of the tendons, damage to the nerves due to compression and chronic pain in the neck.
Are you suffering from this syndrome?
Here are the symptoms of “Whatsappitis” causing due to Excessive Use of Social Media, in case, you are anybody around you is showing at least four of them then they are suffering from this syndrome.
- They need to use their cell phones constantly, most of the time it is just unlocking the phone and locking it again.
- They cannot live without their phones. If the device is not around them they will feel anxiety.
- The use of the phone is affecting their relationships or making them less productive at the workplace.
- They always want the latest phones, apps, or accessories regardless of the fact that they don’t need them.
- They lose the sense of time while using the device.
What are the negative effects of this addiction?
In case you are suffering from this condition then you must see a counselor as
- Prolonged usage of the phone leads to sleep deprivation. The bright light might reduce the sleep quality.
- Eye strain, the usage of a phone at night in the dimly lit room puts stress on the eyes which could cause eye fatigue and damage them as well.
- It can result in accidents due to the users don’t pay attention to the surroundings.
Gadgets like cell phones are there to make us more productive but their overuse is not only reducing our productivity but can also prove fatal. It is important that we don’t misuse it and use the device only to get good knowledge.