Mental health issues in digital era

Internet technology is a wonderful bestow of progressive world which equipped masses to perform task with ease, timely and in cost effective manner. But besides its amazing merits, it poses intense challenges and threatens human health. Researchers found in studies that internet usage immensely impact on the students’ mental health.  These mental turmoil include depression and anxiety, impulsiveness, inattention and executive functioning, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity.

Today, internet is basic requirement of people and it growingly pervades in school, office, home and leisure of human beings. Individuals explore myriads of information in internet such as news, weather forecasts, social interaction, financial facts, pleasure topic stories, shopping details, and travel bookings. People who are computer literate have become habituated to use the internet whether it is financial transaction or chatting on social media. But when withdrawn from internet usage, some people may exhibit negative emotions like anger, frustration and a sense of being detached. Such symptoms may develop serious mental mayhem that sternly impact their health condition and disrupt normal living.

In simple tide, overuse or misuse of internet usage can have detrimental impact on marital, academic and job related arenas. Several scholars, clinicians and psychologists labelled these disorders such as internet addiction syndromes, compulsive internet use, pathological internet use and problematic internet use for people who excessively involved in online activities in their daily life.

Major health risk related with excessive use of internet is sleep deprivation or disturbance. Mental syndrome like insomnia, teeth grinding, apnea, snoring, nightmares are more prevalent for internet addicted users.

In official setup, people who are affected with mental disease due to overuse of internet, cannot take quick or wise business decision. Students become sluggish when using internet for long hours.

If executives, pupils or housewife are gripped with mental ailment due to excessive use of internet, they must seek psychologist’s advice. Psychotherapies like cognitive behaviour therapy is best and effective solution for such mentally ill people.  

My personal experience: As an internet writing professional, in initial days, I had to work hard to make my good presence among employer world and generate revenue. I spent long hours in completing online projects to meet the deadline and worked with several employers. Though it was managed and I balanced home and work life smoothly. But after few years, I felt that I became tired after working long hours on internet. Recently, it affected slightly on my health such as my immune system weakened and sleep was disturbed then I instantly assessed that I have to sacrifice some work to maintain good health and to bye -bye to doctor.  

Money is important in life but we cannot weigh money equally to health. Therefore, I trimmed some projects and rescheduled my work in such a way that there is a room for more entertainment and physical exercise. Additionally, I made association with some innovative work which put less pressure on my health. Results are amazing and escaped me from internet related disturbances that just knocked on my health. Now I can work online but I choose it for limited period and my sleep is back to normal.

I really feel more self-enthused that digital era has given opportunities to exploit talent and perform major task but there should be some boundary which we have to sketch in our life. Therefore, I recommend all readers/users to create self-rules and schedule online activities in a manner that do not impact on health as human life is bequeath of supreme power and our responsibility to retain its legacy.

In nutshell, digital era has revolutionized whole world and accelerated array of functions that made human life comfy. Other facade of this technical advancement is dark that smash their life adversely.  Numerous health hazards may develop for using excessive internet and sometimes human find difficulty to cope with these threatening situation in their life. Therefore, experts recommend to use internet in balanced way and enjoy the technical progression in digital era.

Important: This article is an expression of writer on the basis of experience and available information. Writer is not responsible for any disagreement