Fifty years ago, parents would tell their children there was only one thing that - if you did too much of it - would make you go blind. Thumb, wrist and joint damage was generally the result of too many active sports, while back problems and thrombosis was something that only affected old age pensioners.
How times have changed over the past half-century, since the above-mentioned problems are far more likely to affect seemingly healthy people under the age of 40 in this modern technological era in which we now live.
There is a whole new range of afflictions that are direct byproducts of the information age - e-diseases, if you will - which are brought about by too much time spent working with all our present day electronic gadgets.
Monitoring eye damage
Let`s get the blindness issue out of the way. Once upon a time it may have been what you`re all thinking, but today, the only thing that you might go blind from doing too much of is endlessly staring at your monitor.
You can add your computer to that ever-growing list of things that are bad for you.
Rodney Weidemann, journalist, ITWeb
Yes, improvements have been made in some quarters and there are always those funny "screen dimmers" that attach over the monitor face, but there is no doubt that the widespread use of personal computers has led to an increase in eye damage.
If you don`t believe me, take a look around your own office. How many people who are currently sitting in front of a monitor are either wearing glasses at the moment or at least have to use spectacles in some aspect of their lives, such as when they`re driving.
Blindness, of course, is not the only problem that affects computer users. Sitting for too long can cause muscle cramp and fatigue, pinched nerves and even lower spine problems, all because you were sitting in one place for too long - I guess sloth really is one of the "Seven Deadly Sins".
Worse still is the possibility of a so-called e-thrombosis occurring.
New Zealand doctors have reported the first case of e-thrombosis, in which a 32-year-old man was admitted to hospital with a serious thrombosis after sitting virtually immobile in front of his computer for between 12 and 18 hours every day.
E-thrombosis is said to be very similar to the much spoken of economy class syndrome, or deep vein thrombosis that can affect airline passengers on long-haul flights.
Add to this the dangers posed by your mouse, in the form of carpal tunnel syndrome, and there appears to be no escaping the fact that you can add your computer to that ever-growing list of things that are bad for you.
Even the advent of wireless and the possibilities eschewed by convergence don`t get you off the hook.
A local teenager was recently admitted to hospital with a thumb sprain, brought on by continuous SMSing. Like the so-called e-thrombosis, this was only the first incident of SMS thumb, but one doubts it will be the last.
Frightening evolution
I cannot write a column about the evolution of e-diseases without mentioning an interesting tidbit that a colleague recently suggested to me about where humanity`s own evolution is going.
Considering that we spend most of our time indoors, working on these infernal machines, the likely next step in our evolution (at least, according to my colleague, who was rather inebriated at the time) will be for us to become completely hairless and pale.
He suggests we will develop much longer and thinner fingers (all the better to use the keyboard with), larger eyes (all the better to see the screen with), and smaller and thinner body shapes (all the more ergonomically viable, after all).
He says this is consistent with the visions (not to mention many of the reported sightings) that a large percentage of people have of advanced alien races.
So it appears that you have a choice: either be crippled by this new plague of e-diseases or evolve and end up looking like something out of the X-Files.
Personally, I think I`d rather go back to being a caveman.
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