Texting, Social Media and Your Health

There have been vast advancements in technology over the past 30 years, from personal computers to smart phones and Mp3  players. Year after year our society becomes more technologically advanced making the tasks of life more convenient, easier and faster. However, much of our advancements in technology come at a heavy cost. The repeated every day use of technology can be detrimental to our mental and physical well being.

Social media has made it easier to talk to your friends and family and meet new people online, however it may cause social phobias for face-to-face interaction. It is hard to sense people’s body language, facial expressions and tone of voice when you are texting or typing an email to communicate with one another. The decreased interaction with “real people” may make it hard to get out of the the house to socialize and interact with others without feeling anxious or scared.

When you’re constantly texting, emailing and posting messages on social media, your mind can be completely engulfed by what somebody is saying about you online and you can totally forget about what is going on on the outside world. It is easy to gauge your self worth based on how many messages you’re getting from other people and how many friends you have on Facebook, this is never good because your true self worth should come from God, and your purpose that is destined through the Word of God. You can’t live in the present when you’re anticipating the next email, text or social media post from someone else. Meanwhile your spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, children and friends may be standing right in front of you, craving your time and attention, but you have your head buried in your smart phone as if the phone is more important than them.

Just as a drunk person thinks they are sober enough to drive, a texting person feels they can type out a full message while paying attention to the road. Texting and driving have caused thousands of deaths because it is a dangerous and deadly act. People do not realize that they can not fully commit 100% of their attention to two things at one time. If you are typing a message first you have to think about what you want to say, then you have to type out the words to say it, then you have to make sure the words are spelled out correctly so you will not send out the wrong message. How can you fully concentrate on the road when you have all of these things going on in your mind? You can’t! So don’t.

All text messages can wait until you are no longer driving (not at the stop light, but fully out of the car or when the car is parked). Give 100% of your attention to the road while you are driving because you never know when someone may dart out in front of you, or slam on their breaks while you’re trying to read a text message or email on your phone!

When you spend countless hours in front of a computer screen your muscles begin to atrophy (break down and deteriorate) because your body is not physically active. Your posture suffers because more than likely, you are not sitting up straight in your chair, plus your eyes are straining looking in to a screen of light for hours on end. Put yourself on a timer, remind yourself to stand up and stretch or walk around after every 20 minutes when working on the computer. This will help your circulation, your muscles and your digestion. It will also help you take a break from whatever you’re working on you and by doing so you can relax and de-stress your mind and body.

If you are an entrepreneur, and your business is based online, it can be extremely difficult to pry yourself away from the computer. You may feel like the more time you spend on the computer, the more money you will make. This is dangerous because you will ignore you body’s need for proper nutrition, exercise, sleep and sunshine just because you feel like you’re not working hard enough online. You’ll also ignore your children or the other people you care about because you feel like you can take better care of them if you had more money, when what they really want and need is your affection.

There is nothing wrong with hard work, but you have to submit your request for financial increase to God so you can work smarter not harder. It does not make any sense for you to kill yourself with too much computer time when you can trade that in for prayer time and get twice as far with your business.

All in all, technology is a wonderful thing. It can be used to make us safe and keep us healthy, but it can also be used to make us ignore the people we care about, ignore our body’s signs of exhaustion and sickness plus distract us from being safe drivers. So I encourage you to use technology wisely and be conscious of your mental, spiritual and physical health as you use it.